Hmm... Seems my attempt failed somewhere. Close, but not quite.
There appears to be three ways to get around this problem:
- Get at least 100 EVO.P and pick up Pitsaurus Jaws to jump high enough
- Don't go through Domain of Omosaurus as amphibian
- Pick up Big Horn before saving amphibian form. Faster Mother Prime Frog battle
I'm not sure if the Big Horn itself is enough, but it's the most attractive choice for me. If I don't go through the Omosaurus as an amphibian, I'll get through it as a 9 agility bird at worst.
Bird's flight alone isn't much. There might be a few spots where it can help, possibly with those mid-air tackles, but the biggest thing I'm thinking about is the fact I can get 20 agility instead of 18.
Here's a breakdown of minimum evolution I need to do as dino or birdy in order to achieve maximum speed:
Dinosaur:
- 100 _ Pitsaurus Jaws
- 1000 _ Transform to 2 legs
- 1000 _ Transform to 2 legs (Twice! Gah!)
- 1500 _ Invincible Tail
- 500 _ Segosaurus Dorsal Fin
- 500 _ Ptenodons Crest
Total: 6 transforms, 4600 EVO.P, 18 agility, 12 jump, 7 strength.
Bird:
They already begin with Pitsaurus Jaws!
- 3000 _ Longtail birds Tail (EDIT: fixed the cost)
- 500 _ Segosaurus Dorsal Fin
- 500 _ Ptenodons Crest
Total: 3 transforms, 4000 EVO.P, 20 agility, 11 jump, 9 strength.
Additionally, I can instead pick up Pronesaurus Dorsal Fin for an extra point of strength spending 500 more EVO.P in either form. The bird can get an additional 2 points of strength for the 2000 Warted Body or the 3000 feather body without losing agility.
As seen above, it's much faster to evolve up something decent as a bird.
There's more strength and speed as a bird.
I can still bounce on enemies as a bird, just don't fly when I jump.
I can tackle stuff from the air, which may be useful in a few cases.
I can fly right up those elevators in Chapter 5 instead of actually using them.
On the other hand, birds walk/run slow. A trivial problem when you think about jumping...
... But is that enough to beat out the 3-stage detour I need to take?
Once crucial point seems to be that last battle in the end of Chapter 3. Since I'm taking the bird route, I have 3 decent choices to make:
- Detour into the cloud and pick up dragon form. Ignore the 9999 Blue Crystal. Longest detour.
- Beat the stuffing out of that shell enemy in the water and manipulate up a fancy feast. No crystal transform!
- Grab the green crystal in the boss stage and become the amphibian yet again. Shortest detour.
A less decent choice is to knock down the first one with my amazing 1 strength, then evolve into hitting much harder.
It seems that I can manipulate up flashing meat from the boss enemies of Chapter 3 (cheat-set RNG test), and seeing as I only need a few thousand EVO.P, I can avoid taking the time to eat food I don't care about.
EDIT: Whoops, had the cost of Longtail birds Tail at 1500 instead of 3000. That was quite a mistake...
I seemed to have messed up on a few things concerning my last post. Edits in that post will be made.
You know what? Getting the bird is quite a detour. Since I'm not sure just how much time I can save in chapters 4 and 5 to make up for becoming a bird, I thought I'd go both ways and see what happens...
Chapter 3, birdChapter 3, dino (Fairly insane luck happened here)
The split between movies should be around frame 61238. I suggest a save-state at 61234 so you can avoid fast-forwarding through the other movie file.
Another disadvantage with the bird I didn't anticipate: It can't jump down through platforms. Sure, it can fly down through 'em, but there's no chance that I can bounce on anything with a lofty platform over its head. The dinosaur would have no problem going right through it. Seeing as the B button both begins flight and lets you fall through platforms...
Two minutes of difference between the two runs, though. My question is, can that much time really be saved being a bird? Honestly, I'm rooting for the bird because, look! Wings! And, um... It can fly! And, er... Well... Um... Go birdie! Yay! Yea, just a personal choice, but if it turns out to be slower overall, I will take the dino path and lock away the other run.
As for the frame charts like the kind I made in the previous chapters, I haven't made the measurements yet. It's probably more of a test run at this point, considering the number of possible improvements around. I just hope we can get the insane dino luck again when the next run gets back to that point.
I didn't expect that the detour would be so long. However, yeah, you are right! It can fly!
Hmm, maybe higher strength can help later boss battles...
<klmz> it reminds me of that people used to keep quoting adelikat's IRC statements in the old good days
<adelikat> no doubt
<adelikat> klmz, they still do
Chapter 4, birdChapter 4, dino
Some random notes:
Apparently, I found a way to negate the "can't jump down through platforms" deal. If I bite while in mid-jump, it mysteriously disables the ability to fly until I land. That could have been useful to know while I was still in Chapter 3...
I could have skipped the "become mammal?" dialogue in the bird route, but no... I had to test this after I was well on my way through the chapter. It was properly skipped in the dino route.
Honestly, I was hoping that the trick used against the Mammoth Brothers in the dino run was impossible. But I try it, and it turns out the "contact-damage" hit-box is small enough for me to squeeze in.
I particularly like the outer "Fort Bird-man" room, bird route. After the one jump I make, I bounce all the way into the door. 11 bounces were made. Fun.
You may note I start tackling air repeatedly in the bird-route all of a sudden. That's about when I discovered that's it's slightly faster than dashing normally. I have not compared it to jumping speed yet, however...
The dino run actually needs to take damage in order to save time. I haven't found a need to take damage as the bird, yet.
For some strange reason, Sir Yeti has "contact-damage", but Mother Yeti doesn't. It is abused in the dino route when it allowed me to go into the tackle-loop as seen with the Mammoth Brothers. Interestingly, the few frames in which I can act before I get clapped to death is just long enough to continue the tackle-loop. Not abused in the bird route.
I looked through the rest of the game, and saw how much HP each boss has, thanks to memory watch. I have determined it's most likely faster to take a little time to evolve the body for extra strength. The Warted Body has the same +2 to strength as the Feather Body, so I might pick that up once I restart the run and actually evolve it sometime before I fight the yetis.
I've been charging ahead first as the bird, then follow it with the dino. As a result, the dino route is somewhat more optimized. Meaning once I do go back through, there will be lots more time to shave off in my bird route than the dino route.
Letting you know roughly what my progress is so far:
Bird - At Bolbox battle. Yay, the final battle!
Dino - King Rogon battle. Less than a minute lead by this point now.
Sub-40 minutes might be possible, but not in these test runs. A fresh new run will slowly be worked on after I get these two finished out and available for viewing. Though, if someone really wants to see them now, when the runs don't quite reach the ending yet, I'll post them out anyway.
DrJones wrote:
I post here to cheer FatRatKing, I'll see this run for sure.
Somehow, this very name was referred to not too long ago from someplace else. My response is the same: I am FatRatKnight. As much as I'd like to rule over all fat rats, I'd rather be the rat in shining armor.
negjay, from like a while ago wrote:
I could see 55 minutes for a final time but I don't see going below 50, unless there's a big change in the Prime Frog fight. I'm not one to accurately estimate this kind of thing though.
Your estimation is a bit off, as the bird run is roughly 38 and a half minutes in and currently fighting Bolbox. Then again, there is that big change in the Prime Frog fight... Ah, no wonder! It's all because of that single battle! Nothing to do with rest of the run!
Heh, just joking a bit.
Somehow, this very name was referred to not too long ago from someplace else. My response is the same: I am FatRatKnight. As much as I'd like to rule over all fat rats, I'd rather be the rat in shining armor.
Been putting less time into this, as I've now got some classes to go to. I've still finished chapter 5 in one of the runs, though.
Go birdie! Less than 42 minutes of input!
- Real men don't use elevators to go up!
- Cro-Maine was quite a surprise. I figuratively buried all the other bosses, but not this one! He had to make it literal!
- Not easy trying to be entertaining during the Bolbox battle. Since each enemy has an extra long hit-stun, I could have wandered around a little while beating the stuffing out of them, but I didn't.
I plan to finish off the dino run to figure out which one's faster, then pull off a complete restart from scratch trying to improve on every stage starting with the first.
eternaljwh wrote:
With or without jetpack? ;)
But we already have a RocketKnight! ... Should I say yes anyway for the coolness factor of owning a jetpack?
Go birdie! Less than 42 minutes of input!
- Real men don't use elevators to go up!
- Cro-Maine was quite a surprise. I figuratively buried all the other bosses, but not this one! He had to make it literal!
- Not easy trying to be entertaining during the Bolbox battle. Since each enemy has an extra long hit-stun, I could have wandered around a little while beating the stuffing out of them, but I didn't.
LOL Cro-Maine.
FatRatKnight wrote:
I plan to finish off the dino run to figure out which one's faster, then pull off a complete restart from scratch trying to improve on every stage starting with the first.
I guess it is possible to get Warted or Feathered body in the final battle in Chapter 3 with extreme luck manipulation, as you did in the dino run.
<klmz> it reminds me of that people used to keep quoting adelikat's IRC statements in the old good days
<adelikat> no doubt
<adelikat> klmz, they still do
I think I made that estimate before you posted your smashtastic Prime Frog fight, which cut five in-game days. =)
For the record, even if the bird run never gets posted, the finale to your Tyrannosaur fight was awesome.
Here's a question though - how much time would it cost going mammal? The point being that right before you land the last blow on Bolbox you could evolve into a human and finish that way (afaik the human wouldn't have enough speed to keep up with the others). I think I remember a video on this site with an alternate movie file with a slightly different ending, this would be a likely candidate for similar treatment.
The way you handled Fort Bird-Man was simply awesome, and I think I missed how you evolved the bird's feet into chainsaws.
I get a desync every time I try playing these files. What rom/snes9x version should I be using?
Emulator used: Snes9x v1.43+ v13 for Windows
ROM: E.V.O. Search for Eden (U)
This movie also uses Up+Down and Left+Right occasionally. Make sure it's allowed. If you still have troubles, I'll look deeper into my setups of the emulator.
klmz wrote:
I guess it is possible to get Warted or Feathered body in the final battle in Chapter 3 with extreme luck manipulation, as you did in the dino run.
The extreme luck involved creating two flashing meats simultaneously. I have to study how the luck works in further details before I can even replicate something like that. I just happened to be lucky when my manipulator program spat out numbers that strongly suggested such a possibility at the time, and I took it.
Then there's the further problem that eating meat takes time. Under the best of circumstances, where the meat is actually directly in the way, it will still have to save 1 or 2 hits per meat. Then again, I'll only need 2 extra flashing meats, but setting things up for optimal eating speed...
Between the Mammoth brothers and the Bird King, I am assured enough for a Warted Body by the time I hit the yetis. So all savings depends on whether saving 3 hits on Bird King and 1 hit each from the 3 Mammoth Brothers, plus a hit for each remaining Tyrasaurus, is worth manipulating up the meals.
negjay wrote:
Here's a question though - how much time would it cost going mammal?
First off, one would follow my dino route, grab the Green Crystal that I neglected, and save the evolved dino form. Upon becoming a mammal, one might want to Green Crystal into dino form right away to maintain speed. Compared to the dino route, it's a little slower already.
Then comes the fact that even the fastest horse can only maintain an Agility of 14. On the other hand, it won't slip on ice, gets stronger hits (20 or 25 kicks. Except they're pathetically slow), and you get to see a few neat things.
Overall, lots of time would be spent, and if I were aiming for time, would not show enough new things to warrant a second run, especially considering the first three chapters. A play-around run, however, can and probably should become mammal, as well as show nearly every feature of the game. Reset-recording would be needed to fully maximize the play-around.
negjay wrote:
The way you handled Fort Bird-Man was simply awesome, and I think I missed how you evolved the bird's feet into chainsaws.
Heh, this prompted me to make a (highly edited) snapshot (EDIT: link removed). All you have to do was go into the impossible-to-select Hands & Feet menu to get Chainsaw Legs!
EDIT: Keep in mind I intended to make the link temporary, so now I've removed it. Generally, I don't want to tax someone's site with traffic, so that's the whole reason I intended to keep it temporary.
Wait, what?
I never even considered the possibility of debug content in the greyed-out evolution menus. Is all that's necessary hitting select and move on the same frame? Are there any other menus like that?
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Heh, this prompted me to make a (highly edited) snapshot. All you have to do was go into the impossible-to-select Hands & Feet menu to get Chainsaw Legs!
Note what I said. In there. A highly edited snapshot. Obviously, the menu is impossible to select, so I couldn't have had entered it.
In short, I made a snapshot of a normal menu, then edited that to show random junk. Come on, the chances of Chainsaw Legs showing up right after it's mentioned are real low.
Would make for a good April Fool's joke! I clearly fooled you, though I intended to say that it's not a real snapshot that can be found in-game.
Hah! Whoops. You got me. :) Guess I was just tired when I wrote that post. I think my thought process was "Viewer mentions chainsaw legs...hunh. Haven't heard of anything like that; maybe he found a secret evolution option. Oh, hey, there's an image! I've got to know more!"
Mind you, it would have been pretty awesome if the normally-unavailable evolution menu had various silly bits of content created by bored developers. :)
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
I get a desync every time I try playing these files. What rom/snes9x version should I be using?
Emulator used: Snes9x v1.43+ v13 for Windows
ROM: E.V.O. Search for Eden (U)
This movie also uses Up+Down and Left+Right occasionally. Make sure it's allowed. If you still have troubles, I'll look deeper into my setups of the emulator.
Worked like a charm. Thanks.
I've been wanting to watch a TAS of this game for a long while already.
Not that I meant to forget everything happening here, but zero progress has been made since last I post. The classes I'm taking eat up a fair amount of time, and my interest in things tend to wander.
Just letting you know my status. If I continue, I'll let you know that as well.
EDIT: Thought I should add a little more to this post. I thought a little more about the RNG. Apparently, the game picks up a new random number before using it, in between times where the emulator re-cheats it back to the numbers I specify. The cheat-set values ended up changing before the game uses them for the flashy meat, which threw off my original observation.
I've reset my luck program to no longer ignore the lower bit. And talking about this seems to help me want to get back into things.
If it helps, I enjoyed your WIPs and I fully support the completion of this run!
Somehow, it did. Reminded me that, yes, there exists interest in this TAS. Well, here's what I've done:
Dino, Chapter 5, stops at start of Bolbox dialogue
At the point I stopped the dino movie, it was 1459 frames ahead of the bird run, or roughly 24 1/3 seconds. However, I calculate I need a total of 99 extra hits against all of Bolbox's baddies with 8 strength instead of 12. Assuming each hit requires a third of a second, this would mean that the battle will take 33 seconds longer, most likely putting the dino run at few seconds slower than the bird run by the end.
I have finally reached the conclusion that I desire: The bird wins out. Not by a lot of seconds, but it wins. Besides, there's some stuff I forgot as a bird, like skipping the "become mammal" dialogue, so it wins out a little more. And you know how much I prefer the bird, given what I said before.
But I'll say it again anyway. Go birdie!!
I have regained interest in TASing this game. Seems I'll mess around with trying to beat my old times on each and every stage.
Maybe there will have to be two anyway, since it seems they play differently?
Take a look at the first two chapters and the first half of 3. They are identical up until halfway through 3. This does not make for a very good reason to split up the runs for a bird and a dino.
A playaround might be an idea, though, since it can play differently right from the start. Show every Red Crystal form, play around in every area, show a few quirks of the game, become a mammal, and just be plain silly. There's certainly a few things I did not present in my v1 bird run.
As for whether a goofy playaround would be published here, that's a good question. It would have to be darned entertaining throughout the hour or so of gameplay, which I somewhat doubt I can do. I can still submit such a run, anyway, if I ever get one done.
I just wonder if your new flying method can be ported to other forms...
<klmz> it reminds me of that people used to keep quoting adelikat's IRC statements in the old good days
<adelikat> no doubt
<adelikat> klmz, they still do
I just wonder if your new flying method can be ported to other forms...
"New flying method"? You mean the repeated tackles I make in the air? I recall testing that out with the dino. It's slower than normal dashing, as I recall. Unless you're on ice, in which case, you've got really slow acceleration when trying to dash, but it's still instant speed when you tackle. I have recently tested this repeated tackling as a fish, and it's slower there, too.
Not that it matters for the most part, since jumping still beats out all other methods in terms of speed in general.
I restarted the run. Here's what I've got so far:
I don't see much of a reason to post the new run, yet. I'll upload it on request, though.
Ocean of Origin: I started the jellyfish dialogue sooner, enough to get over the 4-frame rule that dialogue has. I also went through the darn jellyfish before bashing it up. For some reason, I can't take contact damage for a while. Additionally, I make jumps out of the water, which do speed things up.
I'm not sure how I lost that frame in transition between these areas, though.
Cave of Guidance: I spent two frames manipulating that jellyfish to move out of the way so that I can have a straight swim, by waiting at that intro box. No manipulation would mean I would have to take a larger detour around the jellyfish than my old run, due to a different RNG value for finishing the first stage at a different time.
Inside the cave, even though I swim up only one pixel instead of four, I'm still too high to bite the crystal without first stopping my dash. I've searched a few possible starting RNG values, but I just can't maintain a straight dash the whole way through. And though I manage to get to the crystal one frame earlier (according to the game's frame counter), it doesn't beat the 4-frame rule. Somehow, I lose two frames overall...
Cave of Temptation: A little manipulation later (1 frame), and that jellyfish moves out of the way, and the eels hold still. I dash so neatly between the eels! Much cleaner than bashing one to stop my dash.
I'm tempted to follow the same route here, that is, manipulate up the same three flashing meat as before, rather than bash one of those gray zinichthys in the next cave. Different RNG values, but that won't stop me.
I took a little time to figure out the chances of flashing meat drops, through cheats and observation. This is what I can come up with on the more important enemies:
Chapter 1:
Jellyfish - 1/32 (+50)
Green Sea Slugs - 1/16 (+100)
Gray Zinichthy - 1/128 (+300)
Reddish crawlies (either kind) - 1/32 (+200)
Chapter 2:
Blue larvae - 1/32 (+100)
Chapter 3:
Big shell crawly - 1/128 (+2000) (I may want to revisit as a bird)
Tyrasaurus - 1/64 (+1000)
I apologize for destroying the self-esteem of all the other regular enemies, but they're not important in this TAS. This should give me an idea on how hard it is to manipulate the flashy meats. If I find the RNG unforgiving, I'll know if there won't be a drop within a reasonable time. Remind me to thank Dromiceius.
Whoops, uploaded the wrong file! I renamed it incorrectly, it's not even mine!This is where I stopped.
I try to notice when things aren't getting done, and well... Things aren't getting done. This is where I stopped, currently dealing with luck manipulation. As I already listed up there in the previous post, it's around 3 seconds faster.
I'm considering submitting what I do have -- the complete bird run -- with a change in what I do while the final boss slowly disintegrates. Mostly standing there in non-TASlike form isn't the most entertaining thing I could do, so of course I feel I should change that.
... Though, when I think back on the fact I failed to skip a dialogue...
