Player (55)
Joined: 11/28/2013
Posts: 118
Not "SeaQuest" or "seaQuest". I'm having trouble duplicating the max score glitch, which was apparently discovered 10 days ago. Link to video Anyone have ideas? Edit: I've explained the details of the glitch here.
Projects: Tetris DS Genesis Toys: Let the Toy Wars Begin
Player (55)
Joined: 11/28/2013
Posts: 118
The game has a 217-index RNG at address 0x02. When it reaches the end, it cycles back to the beginning. Here are the RNG values, in order:
8, 66, 18, 148, 161, 13, 107, 89, 204, 101, 42, 83, 158, 243, 155, 218, 208, 130, 20, 165, 44, 98, 19, 156, 227, 31, 255, 248, 193, 14, 115, 159, 251, 217, 200, 68, 35, 25, 206, 117, 174, 118, 182, 176, 129, 12, 99, 27, 222, 241, 139, 94, 245, 170, 87, 191, 250, 209, 138, 86, 183, 184, 195, 30, 247, 186, 211, 154, 210, 146, 144, 128, 4, 33, 9, 74, 80, 134, 53, 172, 102, 50, 149, 169, 79, 121, 205, 109, 104, 65, 10, 82, 150, 177, 137, 78, 113, 143, 127, 252, 224, 7, 57, 207, 125, 236, 100, 34, 17, 140, 103, 58, 215, 187, 219, 216, 192, 6, 49, 141, 111, 120, 197, 47, 122, 213, 171, 95, 253, 232, 69, 43, 91, 220, 225, 15, 123, 221, 233, 77, 105, 73, 72, 64, 2, 16, 132, 37, 40, 67, 26, 214, 179, 153, 202, 84, 167, 60, 230, 54, 180, 160, 5, 41, 75, 88, 196, 39, 56, 199, 63, 254, 240, 131, 28, 231, 62, 246, 178, 145, 136, 70, 51, 157, 235, 93, 237, 108, 96, 3, 24, 198, 55, 188, 226, 23, 189, 234, 85, 175, 126, 244, 162, 21, 173, 110, 112, 135, 61, 238, 116, 166, 52, 164, 36, 32, 1
These numbers are not used in the RNG:
0, 11, 22, 29, 38, 45, 46, 48, 59, 71, 76, 81, 90, 92, 97, 106, 114, 119, 124, 133, 142, 147, 151, 152, 163, 168, 181, 185, 190, 194, 201, 203, 212, 223, 228, 229, 239, 242, 249
The RNG starts at frame 2 and advances once every 8 frames. The RNG affects what happens when you shoot an enemy, and the game checks it at the frame when your torpedo collides with a fish or sub. Divers sometimes are spawned when you kill an enemy. By paying attention to RNG values, you can control whether the diver spawns, and which side of the screen they spawn from, which saves a lot of time. Thank you CoolKirby for adding my RAM watch file to the address list for Seaquest.
Projects: Tetris DS Genesis Toys: Let the Toy Wars Begin
Editor, Experienced player (607)
Joined: 11/8/2010
Posts: 4012
You're welcome! Not sure how you knew it was me though... Nice work figuring out the RNG. Does this mean you could theoretically avoid spawning any divers for the length of the run?
Skilled player (1703)
Joined: 9/17/2009
Posts: 4952
Location: ̶C̶a̶n̶a̶d̶a̶ "Kanatah"
The video you showed seems to increase the score at a faster rate than yours. If that was replicated as soon as possible, would it be faster than a TAS that doesn't do it?
Player (55)
Joined: 11/28/2013
Posts: 118
CoolKirby wrote:
Nice work figuring out the RNG. Does this mean you could theoretically avoid spawning any divers for the length of the run?
Yeah, you can pretty much kill fish and avoid divers forever if you want to.
jlun2 wrote:
The video you showed seems to increase the score at a faster rate than yours. If that was replicated as soon as possible, would it be faster than a TAS that doesn't do it?
Yes. He glitches on level 5, though, and I am sure it's fastest to glitch on level 8. I know that the RTA increases the score faster than mine did. My goal in the last submission was just to end input as soon as possible, which seems like a pointless goal in retrospect. Here is a WIP of mine that reaches 999999 in 5:25, 1:37 faster than the RTA. Link to video I made it before I found the RNG, so I've made improvements (to only the first level, so far). Link to video I think improving all the levels will shave another minute off of the 5:25 WIP.
Projects: Tetris DS Genesis Toys: Let the Toy Wars Begin
Post subject: new Seaquest WIP
Player (55)
Joined: 11/28/2013
Posts: 118
I finished level 4, so I am halfway done. I am 1376 frames ahead of my last attempt and 1:28 ahead of the RTA so far. Link to video
Projects: Tetris DS Genesis Toys: Let the Toy Wars Begin
Post subject: Re: new Seaquest WIP
Active player (469)
Joined: 2/1/2014
Posts: 928
scahfy wrote:
I finished level 4, so I am halfway done. I am 1376 frames ahead of my last attempt and 1:28 ahead of the RTA so far. Link to video
what constitutes a level finish, grabbing enough divers?
Post subject: Re: new Seaquest WIP
Player (55)
Joined: 11/28/2013
Posts: 118
solarplex wrote:
what constitutes a level finish, grabbing enough divers?
Yes, you must return to the surface with 6 divers. If you resurface with fewer than 6, then you lose 1 diver, your oxygen refills, and the game advances 1 difficulty level. But this way, the game will not increase points per kill, and my goal is to reach 90 points per kill, so 6 is the magic number.
Projects: Tetris DS Genesis Toys: Let the Toy Wars Begin
Alyosha
He/Him
Editor, Expert player (3514)
Joined: 11/30/2014
Posts: 2713
Location: US
For some time I have been trying to reproduce the 'no despawn glitch' as demonstrated in the currently published TAS. [2599] A2600 Seaquest by morningpee in 01:39.80 So far, I have been totally unable too. The discovery of the glitch was also made on emulator (probably an early version of Bizhawk but I don't know for sure, as is obvious from the divers sticking out of the left edge of the screen.) So far I have found no evidence that it works on console and cannot reproduce it in the current version of BizHawk. I am becoming convinced that the glitch itself is an emulator bug. This would be unfortunate as it would completely invalidate the TAS. I'm posting this here in case it piques anyone's interest. I don't have a lot of time at the moment to sort this out, but any demonstration that the glitch works on BizHawk 2.2.1 (or console) would be a welcome and easy solution. EDIT: The sub is one pixel too far to the left on BizHawk 1.6.1. Bizhawk 2.2.1 and Stella are in agreement on it's poisition. This is likely the cause of the glitch/bug. EDIT2: Yup, I can confirm that moving the sub one pixel to the left is what makes this 'glitch' possible. I'm quite certain now that this glitch is just an emulator bug and the TAS (and the glitch itself) is not possible on hardware.
Alyosha
He/Him
Editor, Expert player (3514)
Joined: 11/30/2014
Posts: 2713
Location: US
I did some research on what a 'no new content' goal of this game would entail. The value at $3D in RAM controls the speed of the enemies / divers. It increases every time you return to the surface with a diver. It doesn't matter how many divers you return with, even with 6 divers the value increases by one. Bahaviour changes all the way through the range 0-255. Some Degenerate behaviour occurs around 0xFB, but as long as you stored enough divers you can make it roll over back to 0. So the 'no new content' condition would require rescuing 256 divers (plus triggering the surface partolling sub to appear which is a different condition.) I don't really intend to do all that. I made a rough run up to 0x80 that wasn't optimized at all and it's just too tedious. Maybe it would make a good bot project for anyone who might be interested in such things.