I suspected as much, but that's a shame. Cyclone is a lot funnier to watch with the speed boosts - the last few levels of this movie looks crazy.
Can you explain the pull-back technique in more detail? I know that your air speed goes up to 2:160 after it drops below 2:95. At which speed is it most beneficial to pull back?
I believe the best method is to release the d-buttons for two frames at 2:146 and then press back (not holding run) at 2:138 for one frame, then go back to holding run and forwards.
You usually benefit from tweaking it a bit so you bounce on enemies as close to 2:160 as possible.
Here's a WIP up to Pinnacle.
Hitting the gap in Crystal Crags 1 seems to be unavoidable, I tested several approaches but nothing seems to work. Also I was unable to manipulate the fireball in Elsewhere 4 to be in a bounceable position, there's not even close to enough variance in it's path, fortunately this only costs about 10/15 frames, still leaving me comfortably ahead of Josh's method.
I think the damage around 14750 is unnecessary. You can go above the blocks.
You lose a frame by landing at 14850. This didn't look easily avoidable though, but if you skip taking damage from the dragon earlier you can take it here.
That's all I saw, I think.
Unfortunately the invincibility doesn't last long enough to get you past all the drills in HotW1.
Anyway, here's a WIP up to Devils Marsh. There are a few improvements in earlier levels, mostly from a better method of passing walls of cannon blocks, but I also took a few frames of the end of HWP 1.
Looks very good. And you progress fast. I was especially surprised about the shortcut in The Pinnacle. I've seen the exit, but never managed to find the entrance.
One question about Shiskaboss, why did you jump to hit the top head at frame 29648? You get on top of him for much faster multi-bouncing later any way.
After killing the other two heads I have to wait a few frames for the top head to drop into striking range, so not making that jump and killing the other heads faster just means I wait a bit longer there.
Skipping that attack lets you avoid taking the first hit and only costs 4 frames, but I couldn't find anywhere better to take the damage.
I'm sorry, that I am recently not available, but I still don't have internet and I was very busy (and still am busy). To make it up to you, I think I finally got around the jump physics, which I will explain now:
First of all, when I'm referring to velocity, I will use the 2bit display of the RAM address FF2507. This means running at full speed is 896, walking is 512 and you start a running jump at 672. Please don't laugh at me, but I don't understand the XX:YYY type of velocities, but since you both use it, I seem to miss an important concept, which I'd really like to learn, if someone finds the time to explain it to me.
After hours of testing and weird theories I realized the obvious: When you are midair, the velocity gets a boost of 64 as soon as it falls below 607 (so it never reaches 606).
facts:
- when you decelerate at a constant rate of -1 and the jump is long enough (aka several resets, thus half the time max speed and half the time min speed), you covered the distance with an average speed of (671+607)/2=639
- so far I found 4 different deceleration rates:
i) pushing forward (seems not to matter if A is held): -1
ii) not pushing forward (seems not to matter if A is held): -4
iii) pushing backward (A not held down): -43
iiii) pushing backward and A: -65 (seems to vary)
- so theoretically speaking (I did not test it), in order to maximise the average velocity, you want to max the time, where your speed is above 639 and minimize the time where your speed is below 639. So as long as you are above 639 you push forward (-1 deceleration) and below, you try to decelerate as fast as possible to 606. In the ideal case (only between 639 and 671), the average velocity would be (672+639)/2=655.
An additional difficulty is, that have to consider facts before and after the jump (do you jump to a lower or upper platform, is there an enemy, do you jump from a slope, do you even want to cover a horizontal distance?). So it will still pretty much come down to trial and error.
Side notes:
- the max velocity possible with this technique after a jump from an enemy is 1005. This might probably mean, that the enemy boost is 1005-670=335= 0.5*670
At another jump I got 1302-868=434=0.5*868
and 1254-836=418=0.5*836
It is thus considerable, that your velocity is multiplied by 1.5 when you jump on an enemy.
- at HWP1 kid chameleon falls at the beginning of the level. I could gain 1 pixel with the new falling technique (I could, however, not use it, as I would not have reached the berserker helmet. As kid chameleon falls into several levels at the beginning, this might be a possible time saver.
I hope, this could be somehow helpful. I'm still in HWP1 due to lack of time. As usual, I will let you know, when I find something new.
It is thus considerable, that your velocity is multiplied by 1.5 when you jump on an enemy.
I ran a few quick tests (namely hacking my velocity to silly values the frame before bouncing on an enemy) and this does indeed seem to be the case.
EDIT: The method I use for jumping in your velocity method, is to release the directional button at 658, then press back (but not A) at 650 and then resume holding forwards and A. This gives an averge velocity of 659.6.
As you may have noticed, I'm back online, yet I can't go on IRC (available next week).
Unfortunately, I didn't achieve much in the meantime. Here is the gmv, which completes the 100k warp.
@Randompie: Your solutions for HWP1 were plain sick, no idea how you found them. I was always slower and ended up copying a lot. Also cool warp trick for the disappearing blocks :)
I will pm you for parts, that have different strategies.
Here are 2 game physic things I noticed (you probably already know).
- apparently you can also get a minor boost when you don't push A when your speed is around 623 or something. It rises up to approx. 665. I used it at the beginning of USM1, gaining 1 pixel (which didn't help much, due to timed elements). It is helpful at accelerating points, where you can't properly reach 607 or 650.
- red stealth has slightly different air behavior. He boosts when falling below 576 (thus not reaching 575) by 96, which results to 672 again. Also, deceleration is different:
i) forward (no matter if A is held): -1
ii) not forward (no matter if A is held): -4
iii) backward (without A): -64 (opposed to -43)
iv) backward (with A): approx. -96 (opposed to -65)
Commands seem to lag behind 1 frame, so keep that in mind. It looks like the pattern here is, to reach 640 and backward, forward+A then (very likely with the 2 frames of no input before).
TheRandomPie_IV wrote:
EDIT: The method I use for jumping in your velocity method, is to release the directional button at 658, then press back (but not A) at 650 and then resume holding forwards and A. This gives an averge velocity of 659.6.
You are right, I later realized that, too, when I started using the technique.
- apparently you can also get a minor boost when you don't push A when your speed is around 623 or something. It rises up to approx. 665. I used it at the beginning of USM1, gaining 1 pixel (which didn't help much, due to timed elements). It is helpful at accelerating points, where you can't properly reach 607 or 650.
Cool, I didn't know this actually. The WIP looks good, very impressive flight in the elsewhere!
I stumbled across a glitch, when I was playing around a little, though I doubt it can be used somewhere:
I was micro max in the pyramids of peril and jumped for the iron knight helmet at the end of the level. I somehow transformed at the right side of the block (offscreen) and fell down. I could jump around at first, but the game eventually froze (kid chameleon stuck during jump, timer stopped, music kept playing).
Sorry, no gmv and I don't know where to upload a screenshot.
Yea, that's happened to me before, and I have no idea where else it might be useful. It's probably triggered by the height difference shunting you to the right side of the block: I've died once when I got that particular mask, simply because I was too high up.
Thanks for backing me up nifboy, it's hard to proof something without gmv.
Just finished Valley of Life and added 3 skycutter autoscroller. I tried to make the flying somehow more interesting. He can turn around every 8th frame, so autofiring with that pattern keeps him in a considerable stable line.
The only new route is the jump into the 2 box entrance I finally nailed in Valley of Life (saved nearly 3 frames).
I seem to constantly lose 2ish frames between levels (from touching flag to beginning of next level), which is a little annoying. You don't happen to know, how to avoid this?
@RT-55J: Thanks for the support. It sure helps keeping the motivation up.
I've died plenty of times when switching from Micromax, but the game seems a bit random on when it displaces you and when it kills you. Ghost block have the same tendency.
At WoD1, is it possible to slide in the slope longer? You move at 4 pixels/frame with Red Stealth in slopes, as opposed to 3 with other characters. Did you try ducking after the slope? Perhaps it gives more than jumping on the tank (doubtful, but anyway).
Also check into where to take damage: I'm not sure the choices in my move were optimal.
I have an idea for The Black Pit, I'll see what I can do about it and the Lion level.
Black Pit and Lion's Den are pretty much autoscroller with skycutter, I can't think of a way to save time, but I would be really cool if you find something.
I feel a little unsatisfied with WoD1 and now that you mention these things, I will redo it again (and edit the rest). Especially the damage planning should be taken into consideration as the last dragon of Vally of Life likely doesn't save more than 10 frames. The problem is that taking damage from the grabbing hands pretty sure means getting grabbed. I'll check it.
(jeez, I really hope, I can get back to IRC soon)
New WIP; this only completes Crystal Crags 1, but is 104 frames ahead of my previous WIP at this point.
I'm only really posting this as I used a new method for breaking blocks that may be helpful for the short version [Edit: Actually it probably isn't] but there are a fair few visible improvements in the later half of the run (USM 3 and beyond) with both Crystal Crags and HotW being a good half second faster each.
Wow, the improvements are definitely awesome. Keeping your speed with Red Stealth is something I would never even think to do, and the levitating trick is a lot more useful than I originally thought it would be.
I'm having a bit of trouble with The Forbidden Tombs, namely my current attempt doesn't even get the speed bonus..
I guess there must be a route I've missed, anyone have any ideas (or even know what time the speed bonus is)?
http://kidchameleon.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page doesn't have it, my weak google-fu doesn't reveal it, gameFAQs doesn't have it...have you tried poking the timer to different values on flagtouch? Or is it programmed well enough to reject that?
edit: Looking forward to both runs, btw.
edit 2: Timer address appears to be 00FF739E counting up every other frame, but Gens10 has RAM poking via watch/search is disabled, so you can't do that. Dang.
Cheating will get you everywhere:
... so you're not going to get this time bonus no matter how hard you try. I think your current attempt looks good.
EDIT: This was done by setting the player's position with Game Genie. For this level, FF24FE:035F (vertically) and FF24FA:0891 (horizontally). The stuff before the colon is the adress you want to set. The stuff behind is the position in pixels (in hex) counting from the top left corner of the level.
It's easy to get yourself killed, so check in advance where you want to be teleported.
*watches* Well done, didn't see anything for serious comment, but am not fully awake, nor trained in this game. Entertaining, particularly liked the maintenance with Cyclone of bounce speed in HotW1.
Just curious, how many frames faster than watching demorph animation is restarting round, since you use it?
...I get the feeling we're never going to see the murder walls. Anyway, keep it up!
... so you're not going to get this time bonus no matter how hard you try. I think your current attempt looks good.
EDIT: This was done by setting the player's position with Game Genie. For this level, FF24FE:035F (vertically) and FF24FA:0891 (horizontally). The stuff before the colon is the adress you want to set. The stuff behind is the position in pixels (in hex) counting from the top left corner of the level.
It's easy to get yourself killed, so check in advance where you want to be teleported.
