I'm pretty sure Dolphin has a RAM watch, but you have to start the emulator in debugger mode (with the -d flag on startup) and I'm not exactly sure how the debugger works.
I'm pretty sure Prime is weak to the Ice Spreader, but not the Ice Beam itself. I think each subround has 110 HP (I've never tested it extensively; it should be around that much though), which is more than the 75 damage Ice Spreader should do, yet it instantly ends the round anyway.
...Actually, what happens on Hard? Does a single Ice Spreader do enough damage or does it take two?
It takes two Ice Spreaders on hard mode. It's possible it takes two on PAL as well.
OK, after testing against Prime, here's what I'm coming up with...
Miles is right, Prime's forms have about 110 HP (definitely no more than 112). Now, from what I can tell, Prime takes 1.5x damage from ice attacks. This includes both the Ice Beam and the Ice Spreader. And on hard mode, it does take 2 Ice Spreaders to go to the next form.
Now, during the actual Ice form, the Ice Spreader probably isn't saving much time over 10 + 30 + 10 + 24. Where the Ice Spreader saves time is the Wave form that comes after it. By nailing Prime with the Ice Spreader just before he changes color, we can skip having to do 5 charged wave beams. If we only use a full charge from the ice beam, we still have to use 3 wave beam full charges.
And we get to do this twice; once in subchamber 2 and once in subchamber 3. That's 6 fully charged wave beams we save, which is about 16 seconds.
About the only other places the Ice Spreader could save time is that it one-shots the invisible security drone and that and Ice Spreader can be used as one of your 3 hits on Omega. That second one saves a fully charged Plasma beam, which is another 3 seconds.
On the other hand, by my estimate, collecting the Ice Spreader loses 19 seconds (14 of which are cutscene). If the collection cutscene is skippable, we can cut that down to more like 13 seconds. So, yeah, Ice Spreader is close to breaking even.
...Or it would be, if it weren't for one other consideration. Assuming bartendorsparky's 1:01 route as a baseline, leaving out the Ice Spreader allows for a route change. Namely, if we get Sun with infinite speed, we can get Strength on the way to Plasma, then go straight to Tallon Overworld.
So, the question is, does using infinite speed to get the artifact of sun and thus not have to go back for it save time?
Now, during the actual Ice form, the Ice Spreader probably isn't saving much time over 10 + 30 + 10 + 24. Where the Ice Spreader saves time is the Wave form that comes after it. By nailing Prime with the Ice Spreader just before he changes color, we can skip having to do 5 charged wave beams. If we only use a full charge from the ice beam, we still have to use 3 wave beam full charges.
And we get to do this twice; once in subchamber 2 and once in subchamber 3. That's 6 fully charged wave beams we save, which is about 16 seconds.
If I'm right, this will cost you 40 missiles over the course of the battle? How many missiles are you planning on picking up?
Well, no, it will cost you 20. You use charged Ice Beams during the Ice phase, as, tbh, they're not all that much slower. The two Ice Spreaders are used to skip Wave phases. You might be able to sneak a 3rd Ice Spreader in by manipulating missile drops.
That all said, sparky's run got 35 missiles, which is one missile refill away from 40. However, in-game time loses a ton less time getting the Ice Spreader and missile expansions, and the Prime fight is really quite nasty to do quickly unassisted. So it's much more justifable there.
At any rate, I'm starting to agree that the Ice Spreader isn't really worth it. If it is, it's pretty close.
Also, while every one of Prime's phases has 110 HP, they are also capped at 110 HP. So if he's lost 109 HP during this phase and you blast him with a Super Missle, he takes 1 damage. I believe the next phase is considered to have started after he finishes charging, which is why we can skip Wave phases at all.
On the subject of the Charge Beam, would it make more sense to pick it up later when you get the Artefact in the water in that room? Saves you coming back here twice, at least. Certainly makes more sense for 100% items, since there's the missile expansions nearby, one of which normally require Spider Ball.
I remember on Mew2King's old video game site, he had a lot of pretty detailed tables on Metroid Prime, including enemy health w/ shots of various weapons required, movement speed, etc, etc.
I can't track it down right now but if you think that'd be helpful I could probably figure out where to get them.
Yeah, I remember that site, too, and I couldn't track it down either. It would be pretty helpful, though, even if only to compare notes.
Anyways, I've been looking into a more detailed analysis of the Ice Spreader. From what I can tell, there's three important comparisons.
-Shore Tunnel with and without picking up Ice Spreader
-Metroid Prime wave form vs. wave form skip.
-Omega Pirate Ice Spreader + 2x Plasma + PB vs 4x Plasma + PB
I've checked the last one. The difference comes to 120 frames, or 2s. The reason it's a bit smaller than I initially quoted is because it doesn't take 4 full plasma charges to kill him. 2 full charges + 2 38-damage charges are enough (plus the PB, of course).
It's kind of a shame if the Ice Spreader ends up being slower. It's a rather neat item, and this is pretty much the one place it's not wholly outclassed by the Super Missile.
Why not just use 3 power bombs on Omega? I'm pretty sure you'll find luck manipulation on drops helpful here. With some good timing you should be able to have the X-ray active as he spawns, instantly forcing him to teleport?
Ah, the problem is PBs don't instantly force him to teleport. In fact, Omega goes through a fairly lengthy animation while he reels from the PB hit. This animation is definitely longer than a full charge of the Plasma Beam.
Also, which missile expansions to get. Looking through sparky's run, there are 4 missile expansions which stand out as being extremely fast.
Watery Hall Access
Root Cave Tunnel
Crash Site Tunnel
Metroid Quarantine A
Also, if we use the infinite speed glitch to collect Sun, we get one of the Phendrana Shores expansions for free.
I'm thinking that 20 missiles total is justified, meaning picking up 3 of the above.
EDIT: OK, I've timed the Prime fight now. Skipping a wave form saves 5.5 seconds. This is lower than my initial estimate because I managed to hit Prime with both a FC and UC Ice beam before changing color, saving a charged Wave beam. The Ice Spreader does save time on Ice phases, but in order for the Ice Spreader to save overall time, it would pretty much need to be used 4 times during the fight. And if we take 20 missiles, the only way to do that is to manipulate Prime into using his orb attack twice, and even that assumes we come into the fight fully stocked, which is unlikely considering the Ridley fight.
So...yeah, Ice Spreader is out. Such a shame. And pretty much entirely because of its collection delay.
The fastest three missile expansions would be:
Main Plaza (One mandatory), Watery hall access on the way back towards Incinerator Drone and the one in the tunnel between the Chozo Ruins elevator and Crashed Frigate if you're going through there.
Due to load times being non-existant at this point, Life Grove Tunnel is probably out of the question, but with loading times it's the fastest one to get. If you get one from the infinite speed glitch, I would leave that one out.
Otherwise I'd probably recommend Metroid Quarantine A.
Right now I don't really see any benefit from having more than 15 missiles though (Have Ridley smash a statue to reload during his battle), unless it makes Omega Pirate alot faster. I'm probably missing something though.
I'm decently sure having 20 missiles makes Omega fast enough to justify another expansion. 20 is the minimum needed to blow off all of his plates with rapid fire missiles, since there's no refills. Switching to the plasma beam and using charges from it takes time, probably about 5-6 seconds, and we have to make sure Omega doesn't start trying to absorb it. Ridley takes 22 missiles (well, 21 + 1 for the lock on Artifact Temple), so a 15 missile route would need 2 refills. And then there's the Phazon Elite, who needs 24, and thus also needs 2 refills if we go with 15 total.
Watery Hall Access and the one near Frigate Crash Site are practically givens, and the infinite speed one is a given too should we choose that route. Otherwise, MQA and the one in Tallon Overworld near the elevator to Magmoor (the aforementioned "root cave tunnel") seem super fast to get. Sparky's run (which I'm kind of using as a baseline here) gets both of those, BTW. They're in segments 11 and 8 respectively.
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=AE49401E4A8E6B9A
As for the other things, Space Jump obviously saves time. I think charge beam speeds up enough bosses (especially Ridley, Prime, and Chozo ghosts) and other things to be worth it. Boost Ball seems like an overall timesaver, and we're obviously getting it if we do an infinite speed route.
Thermal Visor is pending an investigation of the Prime Core fight.
I'm decently sure having 20 missiles makes Omega fast enough to justify another expansion. 20 is the minimum needed to blow off all of his plates with rapid fire missiles, since there's no refills. Switching to the plasma beam and using charges from it takes time, probably about 5-6 seconds, and we have to make sure Omega doesn't start trying to absorb it. Ridley takes 22 missiles (well, 21 + 1 for the lock on Artifact Temple), so a 15 missile route would need 2 refills. And then there's the Phazon Elite, who needs 24, and thus also needs 2 refills if we go with 15 total.
There are 2 pirates on the floor down at the Phazon Elite, as well as some boxes.
Ridley can easily be done with 15 missiles, and I suppose you're going to skip the cutscene at Omega for massive lulz. I'm not saying it's not worth picking up 20 missiles, but I strongly believe 15 is more than enough.
petrie911 wrote:
Watery Hall Access and the one near Frigate Crash Site are practically givens, and the infinite speed one is a given too should we choose that route. Otherwise, MQA and the one in Tallon Overworld near the elevator to Magmoor (the aforementioned "root cave tunnel") seem super fast to get. Sparky's run (which I'm kind of using as a baseline here) gets both of those, BTW. They're in segments 11 and 8 respectively.
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=AE49401E4A8E6B9A
There are many missile packs that are right along the way, but obviously some are faster than others, I would suggest timing the difference between picking and not picking them up in many cases. (Like for example "Root Cave Tunnel" forces an unmorph (You can probably force an instant unmorph there though.), which might cost more than you think if you're boosting through that room with no regards for anything. It's still very quick though.)
petrie911 wrote:
As for the other things, Space Jump obviously saves time. I think charge beam speeds up enough bosses (especially Ridley, Prime, and Chozo ghosts) and other things to be worth it. Boost Ball seems like an overall timesaver, and we're obviously getting it if we do an infinite speed route.
Charge beam makes pretty much every forced fight alot faster, especially if you can pre-charge your beam and such. Boost Ball is needed for a Ridley Quick kill, and I believe that fight only is enough to warrant picking it up, and then there's the added mobility. Space Jump first is a no-brainer.
petrie911 wrote:
Thermal Visor is pending an investigation of the Prime Core fight.
If you can manage a 2 pool with it, but not without it, I'd say go for it. (If nothing else because it'll look awesome.) If you can't, go without it and 3 pool the boss.
How reliable are the save states for this? how about playback? is a tas looking more like a series of shorter segments edited together?
I seriously cannot wait to see a run of this game! a 21% speed run could be blinding. also theres no way to know what sort of frame perfect manipulation glitches we'd get. ex, Arm pumping in super metroid
I seriously cannot wait to see a run of this game! a 21% speed run could be blinding. also theres no way to know what sort of frame perfect manipulation glitches we'd get. ex, Arm pumping in super metroid
Why not 20%? Isn't one of the problems with varia-skip, that they can't get through a heated room in magmoor fast enough? Has someone ever tried that frame-per-frame?
But any TAS of that game would easily be number 1 one my "Must-see" -list.
Current project: Gex 3 any%
Paused: Gex 64 any%
There are no N64 emulators. Just SM64 emulators with hacky support for all the other games.
Joined: 4/21/2004
Posts: 3517
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
What Miles said. But 20% maybe isn't impossible for "us". If I'm not mistaken, we can skip Space Jump. Plasma Beam can be obtained via wicked bomb jumping.
Miles nailed me on IRC :) Its already skipped in a 21% run, so nevermind this post.
Nitrogenesis wrote:
Guys I come from the DidyKnogRacist communite, and you are all wrong, tihs is the run of the mileniun and everyone who says otherwise dosnt know any bater! I found this run vary ease to masturbate too!!!! Don't fuck with me, I know this game so that mean I'm always right!StupedfackincommunityTASVideoz!!!!!!
Arc wrote:
I enjoyed this movie in which hands firmly gripping a shaft lead to balls deep in multiple holes.
natt wrote:
I don't want to get involved in this discussion, but as a point of fact C# is literally the first goddamn thing on that fucking page you linked did you even fucking read it
Cooljay wrote:
Mayor Haggar and Cody are such nice people for the community. Metro City's hospitals reached an all time new record of incoming patients due to their great efforts :P
Joined: 4/21/2004
Posts: 3517
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
I don't think anyone is working on this.. :( Tasing this game will be extremely complex due to various reasons. But from the bottom of my heart, I really hope someone asap picks this up. Also, I think you need to grow some balls to tas a game like this ^_^
Nitrogenesis wrote:
Guys I come from the DidyKnogRacist communite, and you are all wrong, tihs is the run of the mileniun and everyone who says otherwise dosnt know any bater! I found this run vary ease to masturbate too!!!! Don't fuck with me, I know this game so that mean I'm always right!StupedfackincommunityTASVideoz!!!!!!
Arc wrote:
I enjoyed this movie in which hands firmly gripping a shaft lead to balls deep in multiple holes.
natt wrote:
I don't want to get involved in this discussion, but as a point of fact C# is literally the first goddamn thing on that fucking page you linked did you even fucking read it
Cooljay wrote:
Mayor Haggar and Cody are such nice people for the community. Metro City's hospitals reached an all time new record of incoming patients due to their great efforts :P
I would totally tas this once dolphin runs the game. how hard is it to find a v1.0 of the game. I want to avoid all the dumb retro edits they made post release.
also it seems for now that its very hard to get the emulator to run. also, why does it take such a powerful computer to run the game? the GC isn't that strong compared to PC's.
Emulation always incurs a heavy cost. You don't just have to run the instructions in the game's program; you also have to simulate all of the components of the console itself.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Joined: 4/21/2004
Posts: 3517
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
Drewseph wrote:
I would totally tas this once dolphin runs the game.
Not sure where you are getting your info but I assume you don't have the latest revision, cause it's definitely playable (at least seen from the old short videos I've seen).
Nitrogenesis wrote:
Guys I come from the DidyKnogRacist communite, and you are all wrong, tihs is the run of the mileniun and everyone who says otherwise dosnt know any bater! I found this run vary ease to masturbate too!!!! Don't fuck with me, I know this game so that mean I'm always right!StupedfackincommunityTASVideoz!!!!!!
Arc wrote:
I enjoyed this movie in which hands firmly gripping a shaft lead to balls deep in multiple holes.
natt wrote:
I don't want to get involved in this discussion, but as a point of fact C# is literally the first goddamn thing on that fucking page you linked did you even fucking read it
Cooljay wrote:
Mayor Haggar and Cody are such nice people for the community. Metro City's hospitals reached an all time new record of incoming patients due to their great efforts :P
