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Sir_VG
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Player (39)
Joined: 10/9/2004
Posts: 1911
Location: Floating Tower
zidanax wrote:
Dunnius: I would really appreciate if you would post an SMV--it's much easier to understand your strategy when I can see it in action! On another note, I haven't changed my Fillmore strategy yet, but I realized that I could get to the upper-left lair in Bloodpool earlier without losing much time to moving the construction square or whatever you call it. Thus Bloodpool reaches its highest civilization level earlier. That makes the population grow more quickly enough in Bloodpool that, in combination with managing to get one more house in the first construction phase in Kasandora, I managed to leave Kasandora one turn earlier. I also managed to leave Marahna one turn earlier, for a total of two turns saved over my 1st WIP. So that you guys can see what I'm doing, here's my 2nd WIP: Note that I didn't bother to fine tune some little things like how many roads actually need to be built to get the growth we want without making excess roads. You'll notice some missed arrow shots. The action sequences are played in real time. The point is to figure out the best general strategy for each sim, since what you do in each sim has a "ripple effect" on how things go in the later sims, which makes it a pain. And a spreadsheet of this 2nd WIP.
One thing I must comment on with your WIP2 is that you have to remember that your score in the action stages (INCLUDING Act 2) has a reflection on how big the population can get in that area. Taking that long route and fighting as much as you did in Filmoa Act II will impact the population after you leave. 50 points = 1 soul. May not seem like much, but it can add up over time. Just reminding you.
Taking over the world, one game at a time. Currently TASing: Nothing
Player (215)
Joined: 2/12/2006
Posts: 373
Location: Oregon
I'm not sure that will make much of a difference. For each stage, I will get at least 3000 points (because I've got 3 lives) plus whatever time i've got left (10 points per second). Even if you don't take time into account, I get 120 souls for playing two Acts. Fillmore's minimum number of souls is 500, but its population isn't that high by the end of Marahna. Bloodpool's minimum is 330, but 6000 points = 120 souls. 330+120=450, and the max population Bloodpool reaches in this WIP is 422. Kasandora's min of 450+120=570, and I reach 506 in this WIP. Aito's min of 320 +120 =440, and I reach 402 in this WIP. Marahna's min in 210, and I reach 198 in this WIP. And of course, the number of souls I earn is actually somewhat more than that due to points of earned from time left.
Sir_VG
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Posts: 1911
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Well, given that your spreadsheet only has a 20 sim buffer, I just wanted to make sure you remembered about that. Though if I'm reading the rest of it right, I guess I may be worrying too much, since you have room to spare on every area of the world. (So like Fillmore you have 392 out of a possible 448. Correct?)
Taking over the world, one game at a time. Currently TASing: Nothing
Player (215)
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Posts: 373
Location: Oregon
Oh, I'm sorry, I probably caused some confusion by forgetting to mention that what's to the right of each slash is not population, but food. Keeping track of that makes it easier to tell why the population grew by a certain amount.
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Joined: 11/15/2004
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Quick question - in Filmore you build down, up, left. On the second up road, why not go one right first, then left? If a house were built on the right-side road, it would save a build cycle...
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
Player (215)
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Posts: 373
Location: Oregon
DarkKobold: I'm a bit confused. It doesn't matter what direction I point the cursor if I want to build roads in both directions in one turn. As long as there are houses/fields on that second up road, I could build a road to either the right or left, then turn around and build one in the other direction, all in one turn. Sealing the lair simply freezes the timer until sealing is done, if you're wondering. So I build a road to the left, seal the lair, then go to the right, all in one turn. I could've first built a road to the right then gone to the left to seal the lair, then go back to the right again, but that would've been a waste of time because I would still have to wait another turn before I could build another square to the right, just like before. Am I making any sense?
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Hah, I forgot that there is one less section to the left than to the right. My bad.
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
Sir_VG
He/Him
Player (39)
Joined: 10/9/2004
Posts: 1911
Location: Floating Tower
DarkKobold wrote:
Quick question - in Filmore you build down, up, left. On the second up road, why not go one right first, then left? If a house were built on the right-side road, it would save a build cycle...
The reason why he goes up, down, and then back up again is that it's part of the formula to avoid having a house being built in one particular spot (on the first block of road north of the temple), which if built there will always catch on fire, forcing him to have to go through more chatter and either putting it out (20 MP miracle Rain) or waiting for it to burn itself out.
Taking over the world, one game at a time. Currently TASing: Nothing
Player (215)
Joined: 2/12/2006
Posts: 373
Location: Oregon
I'm not sure I'm going to be able to shave off any more construction phases reasonably. Getting out of Fillmore one phase earlier would get us 20 more people due to spending that phase elsewhere with highest-civilization-level construction, but that still leaves 48 more extra people to get by phase 40. We could try to build simultaneously towards both lairs in Marahna, thus bypassing the middle civilization level. But that would get us, max, about 36 more people (and probably not that much due to food), not to mention it would take a lot of time to move the construction pointer that much (remember that the construction timer stops while you have the angel direct the construction pointer). We might be able to get more houses built at the beginning of Bloodpool and/or Fillmore and/or Kasandora, but to do so would require taking advantage of methods of movement that stop the construction timer in order to kill monsters as soon as they get out of their lairs. Getting three more houses this way would, like skipping the middle civilization level in Marahna, suck up a lot of time that could've been spent letting the construction timer increment. What about out-of-town construction? By the time the population has reached 1900 in Marahna in my 2nd sim test, every town (other than Marahna, of course) has gone through out-of-town construction no more than three turns ago. But towns take *6* phases to build while you're not in them, unless you've just left the town. So out-of-town construction will not save the day. In short, I think we might be able to shave off one more phase, but the tactics involved would require enough stopping of the construction timer to nullify the benefit. I think I may proceed with the current basic sim strategy, but of course make sure to optimize things like road building.
Active player (422)
Joined: 9/7/2007
Posts: 329
Here is the WIP with the Fillmore sim TASed. http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/107237543/ActRaiser%20%28U%29%20Zidanax%20and%20Dunnius%20WIP%201.smv I figured out how to get the last lair destroyed before the fifth construction cycle without wasting frames. This removes a construction cycle and the people's message about that destroying that one rock. It also has another benefit, another cheat road. By waiting a few frames after the fifth construction cycle, a road will be built over the blue dragon lair. I think this should be done after act 2 so that the extra increment to the construction counter that is wasted by coming back to Fillmore could be put to some use. I stayed up until 2 in the morning in order to complete this, so forgive me if there are any minor errors. I am going to go over this and fix anything that I see.
Player (215)
Joined: 2/12/2006
Posts: 373
Location: Oregon
Thank you for putting up an SMV. Now I can see exactly what you're doing. I looked at it, and I like your idea, since it would allow us to get out of Fillmore one phase earlier, and leave with 114 people instead of 106 people like the other strategy for leaving Fillmore earlier. There are just a few things I'm concerned about: how much time is used up moving the construction pointer? Whenever you move the construction pointer, the construction timer stops. I'll try to find out how many frames are spent moving the construction pointer in comparison with my strategy. It probably won't be a huge difference, and the fact that you skip that message about the rock will reduce the difference in timer stoppage, but it's worth a check. Also, (and I don't think this is at all your fault) for some reason when this strategy is used Fillmore's first out-of-town construction phase occurs after two phases in Bloodpool instead of one like in my strategy. If you look at my population growth table for my second sim test, you'll see that Fillmore grows yet again on the same phase that the population of Bloodpool and Fillmore combined goes over 400. In my strategy, that second out-of-town growth in Fillmore isn't necessary to get out of Bloodpool by it's 8th phase (14th overall), but in your strategy it is necessary in order to get out by Bloodpool's 8th phase (13th overall), because you leave Fillmore with less people. But in your strategy, Fillmore's second population increase in Bloodpool happens in Bloodpool's 9th phase, not it's 8th. So you end up having to wait one more period in Bloodpool, which cancels out leaving Fillmore one phase early. It's just that this time you leave Bloodpool with 16 more people, which according to my sim tests won't be enough to save construction phases anywhere else. Given that, I think which strategy we choose will probably depend on which one delays the timer less. That reminds me that I forgot to put up my document listing memory locations (well, actually there's more than memory locations, but I haven't bothered to cleanly separate stuff). I'm really sorry that I didn't think to put it up earlier, because it could really come in handy while doing testing sim stuff, if you haven't already found the memory locations. ActRaiser Memory Locations. EDIT: If we're going to have a fair comparison of the two strategies, though, we'll need to make sure things like road placement are optimized. One thing that comes to mind for your strategy is that the road just to the left of the southern bat lair is not necessary, because Fillmore won't grow big enough to use that, judging by my sim tests.
Skilled player (1633)
Joined: 11/15/2004
Posts: 2202
Location: Killjoy
I'm trying to write a Lua Script that tracks the enemies while they are off screen. Meanwhile, I found these addresses 0x7E0022 Sim - Camera X (2) 0x7E0024 Sim - Camera Y (2) The Camera has a max X value of 256, and a max Y value of 287, for all locations. The camera starts moving right when the Angel's X is greater than 128. Thus, the Camera is equal to AngelX - 128 when AngelX > 128. Still working on the rest.
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
Skilled player (1633)
Joined: 11/15/2004
Posts: 2202
Location: Killjoy
Zidanax - I made a Lua script which should make the sim parts easier. It tracks the enemies off screen, and tells you their position relative to the camera. Also, the angel tells you the soul counter and the timer.
AngelX =0x7E0AEE;
AngelY =0x7E0AF0;
EnX = {};
EnY ={};
EX = {};
EY = {};
EnX[1] = 0x7E0BAC;
EnY[1] = 0x7E0BAE;
EnX[2] = 0x7E0B60;
EnY[2] = 0x7E0B62;
EnX[3] = 0x7E0B86;
EnY[3] = 0x7E0B88;
EnX[4] = 0x7E0B3A;
EnY[4] = 0x7E0B3C;

CameraX = 0x7E0022;
CameraY = 0x7E0024;
TimerAdd = 0x7F91FE;

local s_timer
local soulcounter
local pop
local soultxt 
local AX
local AY
local colormat = {"black","red","blue","white"};
gui.transparency(0)

while true do
   local soulc1 = memory.readbyte(0x7F9EFA)
   local soulc2 = memory.readbyte(0x7F9EFB)
   s_timer = memory.readbyte(TimerAdd+1);  
   AX = memory.readbyte(AngelX) + 256*memory.readbyte(AngelX+1);
   AY = memory.readbyte(AngelY) + 256*memory.readbyte(AngelY+1);
   CX = memory.readbyte(CameraX) + 256*memory.readbyte(CameraX+1);
   CY = memory.readbyte(CameraY) + 256*memory.readbyte(CameraY+1);
   for i =1,4,1 do
       EX[i] = memory.readbyte(EnX[i]) + 256* memory.readbyte(EnX[i]+1);
       EY[i] = memory.readbyte(EnY[i]) + 256* memory.readbyte(EnY[i]+1);       
     if (EX[i]-CX >= 0) and (EY[i] - CY  < 220) then
           gui.drawbox(0,EY[i]-CY,12,EY[i]-CY+12,colormat[i]);                           
           gui.text(1,EY[i]-CY,string.format("%d,%d",EX[i]-CX,EY[i]-CY));
        elseif (EY[i] - CY > 242) then
        if (EY[i] - CY >= 0) and (EY[i] - CY  < 210) then
           gui.drawbox(245,EY[i]-CY,255,EY[i]-CY+12,colormat[i]);                           
           gui.text(210,EY[i]-CY,string.format("%d,%d",EX[i]-CX-256,EY[i]-CY));
        elseif (EY[i] - CY < 0) then                   
        	gui.text(205,0,string.format("%d,%d",EX[i]-CX,EY[i]-CY));
        else
        	gui.text(210,212,string.format("%d,%d",EX[i]-CX,EY[i]-CY-212));
       	end;      
     elseif (EY[i]-CY > 210) then    
         gui.drawbox(EX[i]-CX,212,EX[i]-CX+12,222,colormat[i]);         
         gui.text(EX[i]-CX,212,string.format("%d,%d",EX[i]-CX,EY[i]-CY-210));             
    end;
   end;
   soulcounter = soulc1 + soulc2*256
   gui.text(AX-CX,AY-CY,soulcounter);
   gui.text(AX-CX,AY-CY+10,s_timer);
  snes9x.frameadvance()
end
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
Player (215)
Joined: 2/12/2006
Posts: 373
Location: Oregon
I did a quick check of how the two sim strategies for Fillmore compare when Bloodpool is taken into account. I tried to not build a road to the left of the bottom lair, using your strategy. When I did that, and tried to measure how long it would take to wait another phase in Bloodpool, as would happen with your strategy, I got that your strategy would take about 32 frames longer when time spent in Bloodpool is taken into account. But that's only a rough check. The best way to compare would be to try to optimize both strategies all the way to the end of Bloodpool and compare time spent in those two sims. Whichever way it goes, the time difference between the two strategies will probably be very small. EDIT: In the meantime, I've been TASing some of the action sequences by themselves. I've done Bloodpool Act 2 and Kasandora Act 1. Bloodpool Act 2 I actually lost 4 frames, but I didn't have any sources of magic. I would've actually saved time if I could've gotten the boss to appear off of the floor twice in a row right at the beginning of the fight. Kasandora Act 1 I saved 236 frames here. I talked earlier about making some basic lua scripts to mess around with casting stardust. Even though the one for waiting a variable period of time was only semi-useful when I tested it against the Bloodpool Act 2 boss, it actually worked rather well here as long I moved the character around to different positions to try the script. I actually saved 28 frames in the boss fight in spite of only having one source of magic instead of two. Having done WIPs like this will make the work go a lot faster once we actually put everything together since I'll have a good idea of what to do in each stage. I might even be able to hex some of these in, though I wonder about the boss fights, since some of them use stardust. But even just hexing in the stage up to the boss fight would be great.
Joined: 7/12/2004
Posts: 524
Location: USA
Fighting the Act 2 Bloodpool boss without any magic seems pretty slow. I guess the time it takes to get either of the two scrolls in Fillmore would cancel any time saved there I guess. Now if there is any big waiting periods later I would suggest getting 200 people in Fillmore and grab that Scroll. I guess with enough cheat roads and having the towns develop on their own while you're gone would hopefully eliminate that.
Working on: Command and Conquer PSX Nod Campaign
Player (215)
Joined: 2/12/2006
Posts: 373
Location: Oregon
I doubt that waiting in Fillmore and picking up the scroll would be a good idea. The time to enter Fillmore, plus the time to exit it, plus the time to go through the messages they give you (One of which I manage to skip before leaving for the first time, but wouldn't be able to skip if I came back), plus the time to pick up the scroll would nullify time saved from picking up that scroll. The time for those events is about 700 frames. I have not been able to save that many frames with any single boss, and I will be picking up some other scrolls that will be used against non death heim bosses. When scrolls are effectively used , one scroll will generally provide the majority of possible time savings against any particular boss, with any second scroll generally providing less than 100 frames in time savings, if any at all. I would like to stress how little time most scrolls save in comparison to how long it takes to pick them up, once you can slash at the speed of TAS, so to speak. EDIT: Currently working on Kasandora Act 2, and I just wanted to share a funky bug I found. I doubt it'll save any time, but it looks kind of funny. You might want to play the smv in slow motion/frame advance. Kasandora Act 2 bug
Joined: 7/12/2004
Posts: 524
Location: USA
Make sure you use this time saver in Kasandora Act 1 that I found a while back and didn't use in my published run. Should save a few seconds I'd think. If you already know about this please disregard.
Working on: Command and Conquer PSX Nod Campaign
Player (215)
Joined: 2/12/2006
Posts: 373
Location: Oregon
Yep, I know about that shortcut. In fact, I think you may have told me earlier. I finished Kasandora Act 2 and saved 376 frames. It would've been more, but I don't want to spend tons of time manipulating stardust patterns for the boss since the exact patterns may change when I go through this level again. At the moment, the boss fight is about 130 frames slower than Ogreslayer's boss fight. The waiting before entering the fight was an attempt to manipulate the stardust patterns since waiting before entering does change the patterns, but it only helped some. Kasandora Act 2 WIP 1 EDIT: I looked at Ogreslayer's run and remembered that you can build a road over the square in Kasandora that has a pyramid... even while there's still a pyramid there. So I thought "Why not use a route that doesn't cast rain on the squares beneath the pyramid and northeast lair?" I made an SMV of that strategy, and unless I'm messing something up, it seems to save about 600 frames. The catch is that I can't get a 5th house in the beginning phase of Kasandora, and the rate of population increase is slightly different, so I can't leave Kasandora one phase early. But with Dunnius' Fillmore strategy, we'd have a few extra people, so we'd still be able to leave Kasandora one phase early. Even if Dunnius' strategy is slower playing through Bloodpool/Fillmore, it doubt it's 600 frames slower. Any loss in time in Bloodpool/Fillmore from Dunnius' strategy will probably be more than made up by it letting us use my faster strategy in Kasandora. There are just a few things to check: Can Bloodpool support the extra population? How soon after you leave Kasandora will Kasandora experience another construction phase? What about Aitos? It's vital that Aitos still grow on Marahna's first construction phase. If those things turn out OK, then we will almost certainly use Dunnius' Fillmore strategy. Here's my Kasandora strategy.
Active player (422)
Joined: 9/7/2007
Posts: 329
I was optimizing Fillmore by removing the extra road and removing the extra direct the people, but that ended up costing frames. I figured out why and discovered a way to save frames in the simulation. When directing the people, there is a limit of 8 squares of movement. If you hit that limit, there is an extra 8 frames of lag before the message that says that the town will be built as directed. By splitting the "direct the people" command into two, up to 6 frames are saved. The best frame gain is when the angel is on the border of the square before the split, and as far away as possible in the main direction of movement after the split, which is 38 units apart. The reason for the savings is that the construction counter increments while the angel travels the distance, which saves up to 19 frames. However, the extra "direct the people" is slower by 21 frames, but since this method is used to avoid the 8 frame lag, this ends up saving 6 frames. So naturally this calls for a route modification. If my planned route works, I am sure I will save the 32 frames needed to be faster than the 6 cycle Fillmore. Most of the improvement has to do with a more efficient path getting the extra roads in the south.
Player (215)
Joined: 2/12/2006
Posts: 373
Location: Oregon
Nice find with the modified construction pointer movement to save time. I have an idea for something to experiment with in the sims.We know that where people build depends on where we move the construction pointer, as shown by having to move the construction pointer in a particular way in Fillmore to avoid a fire. Does the length of the "Town Under Construction" part vary depending on where people actually build? If it does, then I wonder if it would be possible to save time by the leaving the construction pointer in particular places while waiting for the people to build. Naturally, the "Town Under Construction" part would have to be shorter enough to make up for the extra time spent moving the pointer. Also keep in mind that the 32 frame estimate I threw out is just that, an estimate. For all I know, optimizing both your strategy and mine would show the difference to be bigger. Even so, I doubt the difference would be more than 600 frames, which is the time gained in Kasandora using my modified Kasandora strategy, which requires leaving Fillmore earlier (e.g., with your strategy). EDIT: Here's Aitos Act 1. I managed to save 514 frames. I actually managed to save frames on the part where birds carry you over. Probably lag reduction because I spent more time on the ground. I also managed a very nice time-saver elsewhere. Perhaps one of you guys have already discovered it, but I was rather pleased, because I'd been wondering if it was possible, and I barely managed it. You'll know what I'm talking about when you see it. :) Aitos Act 1 WIP 1 Also, it turns out that it's possible to zip in ActRaiser: Zipping example. Unfortunately, I'm not sure where I'd be able to use it. Unless you guys can think of another way to jam into walls where it would actually be useful instead, of, um killing the character.
Joined: 7/12/2004
Posts: 524
Location: USA
It's cool that time saver worked in Aitos Act 1. Gotta love that jump boost trick. When I was working on my run I figured even if I could across there it would just be a dead end. I guess it was intended by the devs perhaps.
Working on: Command and Conquer PSX Nod Campaign
Sir_VG
He/Him
Player (39)
Joined: 10/9/2004
Posts: 1911
Location: Floating Tower
zidanax wrote:
EDIT: Here's Aitos Act 1. I managed to save 514 frames. I actually managed to save frames on the part where birds carry you over. Probably lag reduction because I spent more time on the ground. I also managed a very nice time-saver elsewhere. Perhaps one of you guys have already discovered it, but I was rather pleased, because I'd been wondering if it was possible, and I barely managed it. You'll know what I'm talking about when you see it. :) Aitos Act 1 WIP 1 Also, it turns out that it's possible to zip in ActRaiser: Zipping example. Unfortunately, I'm not sure where I'd be able to use it. Unless you guys can think of another way to jam into walls where it would actually be useful instead, of, um killing the character.
Holy crap, I had wondered if it was possible to get up to that upper ledge at the end. Now you've proven that it IS possible! You saved 9 seconds (timer wise) from what I normally have in that section. Great boss fight as well. As for the ZIP, nice glitch find. I can't think of anywhere it would help, since there's not a lot of moving platforms that go on the edge of ledges/ceilings, etc.
Taking over the world, one game at a time. Currently TASing: Nothing
Player (215)
Joined: 2/12/2006
Posts: 373
Location: Oregon
Finished Aitos Act 2. Saved 154 frames. I may change my strategy when I come back to this stage, since you have to decide where you want to get hit to bypass stuff, and where you want to bypass monsters through other methods. You don't have enough life to get hit as many times as you'd like. By the way Ogreslayer: I'm impressed that you managed to come up with that method for bypassing the last (5th) red blob in the big corridor without getting hit. Especially since you didn't have frame advance. It was a pain for me to get it to work, so I ended up following your smv very closely in that little segment. It seems that the timing and position of the landing on the platform to the left of the blob has to be absolutely dead-on or else you get hit when you try to attack the red blob. Aitos Act 2 WIP
Sir_VG
He/Him
Player (39)
Joined: 10/9/2004
Posts: 1911
Location: Floating Tower
That boss fight was just...WOW. You continue to amaze, sir.
Taking over the world, one game at a time. Currently TASing: Nothing
Player (215)
Joined: 2/12/2006
Posts: 373
Location: Oregon
The question is... will I continue to be that lucky with stardust patterns? I wasn't so lucky when I went through Kasandora Act 2, even after waiting for a bit outside of the boss's room, so the fight was slower than Ogreslayer's. We can hope that things turn out well when the run is put together,during which I'll play through the levels one more time to see if I can squeeze any more frames out of them (I find it works well to compete against a previous run I've made). Interestingly enough, the Aitos boss fight took almost exactly the same amount of time from entering the boss's room to the boss's death as Ogreslayer's fight, except I only cast stardust once. Just turned out that way.
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