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Hey awhile back I posted that you can morph jump to get out the ice beam column, I vaguely remember doing it, but when I try to do it again it comes up just short, lord tom says he can't do it either. Anyone able to do this, I'm pretty sure I did it before or I wouldn't have said it was possible here. Also for 100% is it nessisary to get both icebeams?
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Spider-Waffle wrote:
Also for 100% is it nessisary to get both icebeams?
Metroid 2 picks up any duplicate items only once, so I would imagine no.
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hmm, well it's certainly possible to bomb your way all the up, I think you just need to get 2 bounces off each bomb which means delaying the bomb a couple frames usually. I think I could save 2 bombs by getting a boost off the top enemy, but you have to be on the other side. This would really save a lot of time for a 100% route especial if the morph jump out of the column in fact doesn't work which still has me totally baffled why I can't do it.
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Lord_Tom
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So, as some of you know I've been working on the 100% run for this game. Here's a WIP. No bosses beaten yet, but I have the Ball, Brinstar Ice, Bombs, Varia, Long Beam and Wave Beam; this WIP completes one of my planned 3 segments (separated by resets) in Norfair. Even though I suppose a run without them might get published as a 100%, I decided for various reasons to get all map items, including both ice beams and all energy tanks. That's what the published run does, as well. I anticipate finishing with about 8-10 minutes of improvements over Zoizite's run; although I save a lot of time with new shortcuts & techniques, obviously a large chunk of the time saved is just by using resets... Finally, there's about 5 frames of time/entertainment trade-off so far...can anyone spot them? :D
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Nice so far. Could the frames be when you cause lag by firing your ice beam 5 times in Brinstar?
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Looks great! Thanks for sharing WIP.
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Could it be shooting freezing the zoomer while waiting on door in norfair? Why would you want to sacrifice frames though, I thought that took priority over everything else. I think having the beeping health warning might speed the game up. I played the movie with game genie lose no health cheat, and it dysnced once you went to into the health warning because you fired too earlier for a door.
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Score another one for the total craziness of TAS'ing Metroid. I was doing one of those single-width, corridor-only screens in Norfair, and thought I'd test if I could shoot both doors open without losing time (because ordinarily firing a shot behind Samus while running only costs a pixel or so). What did I find? Shooting both doors was actually 5 frames FASTER! A little digging revealed that the difference was in lag during the scroll action alone -- enemy movements were identical. My hypothesis is that a door counts as an object on-screen just like a monster does; starting a scroll with the opposite door open = 1 fewer object = less lag in certain situations. As to the "time vs entertainment" trade-off I mentioned, I lost 4 frames getting the missile from the flying creature above the Ice Beam, and one frame striking a pose on one of the resets. For the Ice Beam, it's possible to get the missile faster by running out toward the monster and blasting it, but I thought it made the wait more interesting to lure it over to the door and get the missile from it while the door trick had already started. Spiderwaffle: Yes, speed is a main goal here, but for a half-hour run of what can be a repetitive game, I'm ok with giving up tiny fractions of time to do something interesting now and then -- it definitely makes it more interesting for me, and hopefully for the audience.
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Nice find with the door! Mightn't a door be several objects, though, since it's the size of (IIRC) 3 blocks? If it's only one object and it causes 5 frames of lag, it might well be worth trying to minimize other objects onscreen when you scroll. I'm all in favor of sacrificing time for entertainment, but I would suggest pointing those points out in your submission description so someone doesn't think you're being unintentionally inefficient.
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Better yet, add subtitles in the .fm2 for those moments :P Also, I totally agree with Lord Tom that small sacrifices are ok in a 100% run in order to beef up the entertainment value.
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Can you test the beeping health warning to see if it saves time. I thinking it might by overwriting the need to play certain sounds and thus making less lag. Since when the game genie code prevented the beeping, your input came too soon for where you were in the game, seems like the beeping sped things up. Or maybe it was because of an item drop or something.
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Derakon: Minimizing objects prior to a scroll was a technique I was already using, though for most screens it doesn't matter since 90% of screens have no lag during the scrolling. And yes, I'll point out what was done and why so ppl don't think I'm a dope...or at least more of a dope...:D Adelikat: I was SO happy to find out about the subtitles feature, though I totally forgot about it for the SMB3 run. I've been procrastinating on converting my Metroid wip to .fm2, but this'll definitely nudge me. THANKS! Spider: I'll check, though I suspect that a Game Genie code could increease/decrease lag by enabling/disabling certain calculations rather than it being the beeping. For instance, lag potential is greatly reduced after you take damage, presumably because it doesn't both doing Samus/creature collision detection during that time. Also, I'd be somewhat reluctant to submit a run that features that beeping sound constantly, since ppl already complained about too much beeping in the any%, and that was like 1/4 as long...
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Lord Tom wrote:
though I totally forgot about it for the SMB3 run.
It is still not too late!
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Lord_Tom
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Hmmm...I suppose so...will have to ask Mitjitsu if he minds (I don't imagine he will), I'd love to have a few comments in there explaining stuff.
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Is there a way to see if the system is lagging or not? So you tell where and how many frames your losing to lag.
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If you use FCEUX, there's a lag counter that appears above the frame counter. Otherwise, watch memory address 2002; when bit 5 (value=16) is set seems to correspond quite consistently to lag frames. Usually it's 0 if you're not lagging, usually it's 16 or 80 if you are lagging. Not perfect in all situations, but it works for me very well.
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Quick update on the 100%...it's getting close, I've got all the items, and have beaten Ridley and Kraid. Looks like total improvement will be about 8 minutes. I'm also planning to do the 1-item, time permitting. I don't think it'll take too long, since the start of it is the same as the any%, and I'm pretty well familiar with the game at this point. ;)
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!!! Good job, man, can't wait to see it. :)
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I was just hoping for a reply, great news to hear, can I see the WIP? I was thinking of testing if the health warning reduced lag since it should be easy to check with the emu tracking every frame lost from lag. Just want a somewhat laggy section where I can run straight for a long time.
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I wasn't going to post anymore WIP's since I'm so close to done and wanted to save SOME surprises. I did look into the health alarm/lag situation, and wasn't able to detect any change in lag based on it. Good laggy screens to test are Kraid, most any room in Ridley's area with the bouncy balls, and any room in Tourian w/ 3+ metroids. I just found another trick that may have already been known, though I never heard it mentioned; you can morph jump *without* actually morphing. To do it requires running up to the edge of a ledge and pressing down to morph just as Samus reaches the edge. If you press down (for two frames) on the last possible frame before Samus runs off, Samus will assume the standing posture as she falls, and can then jump out of mid-air at any point in the fall, as long as you don't move left or right. This technique saved about 9 frames getting the E-tank in Kraid's room. Might save on the Zebetites, too, I'm not sure.
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You mean the barely falling of edge while staying standing? It was done in the zeebitie rooms in past TASes. I've done sometimes on console, I thought it just a matter of barely falling off, not pressing down while you barely fall off. It's really a shame the morph jump wouldn't work to get up from ice beam faster, I'm like 99% it sure has worked for me in the past, it might be rom dependent or sub-pixel and I don't think we know much about sub-pixel. Can anyone hack the source code like was done for rockman? Might be able to explain the mystery of off screen collisions as well.
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The highest possible jump is obtained by starting with the y subpixel=0; even doing so, the highest possible morph jump is >1 px short of being able to make that jump, so it's not a sub-pixel thing. Of course, the jump IS possible with high jump...</tongue> The source code PJ points out is partially commented but alas, does not fully explain all the ins and outs of the game. I did try picking up some NES assembly know-how to further the effort, but it was pretty far out of my league. EDIT: Yeah, Spider, you're right about the morph jump "discovery,"...
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So you did it? Were you able to figure out what makes it work?
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Lord_Tom
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If you're referring to the jump onto the ledge above the Ice Beam, no; I was referring to the technique of morph jumping by stopping just at the edge of a ledge (without morphing). BTW, if you haven't seen it, the 100% is published now...:D