So I've been playing this game for the past 2 days and I gotta say, it could make an interesting TAS. It's a pretty short game for an RPG (think Magic Knight Rayearth (sp.) short) so while it would be a bit repetitive (what RPG isn't), it wouldn't be too long.
With luck manipulation you could get monsters to drop all the scrap you need and in battle get the equip upgrades whenever you fight non-boss battles.
The only problem I think might arise is that some bosses are very tough when you are low-level so some strategies would need to be developped so they don't take 1 hour to beat each, or that you don't die in 1 hit.
I'm also pretty sure that you would only need 2 robots... the 4000 gold needed to make the 3rd robot could be saved for weapons. Also, the 2nd robot wouldn't need to be made too early so that you can power up your first one.
Also, you would need to make RUNs that kill all enemies but don't take too long. For example, using a RUN that's 3-times sword-4 might kill every enemy but if using a RUN that's only 2-times sword-4 kills every enemy as well, obviously you need to think things through. I've also noticed RUNs can do different thing depending on how you mix them. I use a bomb-punch-punch run that makes your robot jump behind the enemy, punch X2, jump back to start. Probably a few combos that do good damage this way.
It's also a good idea to check which Inventor's Friend you might need. If you need a certain item so you can upgrade it, you could either manipulate it from a monster though so maybe it's better to just get none of these.
So main concerns would be :
-Manipulating scrap drops.
-Manipulating equip level ups.
-Choosing where to level up.
-Choosing which weapons to make when to have the best possible damage versus bosses.
-Making optimal RUNs.
-Choosing which Inventor's Friend you will need if any.
-Making the TAS entertaining enough to make someone watch it all... maybe using all the different weapons at least once might be nice. This is probably the most important point right now
How do you guys feel about a run of this game? Interesting enough? I don't think it will be too repetitive because you will be upgrading your weapons very often for a large portion of the game.
I'm very interested, I own a cart of this game. I think that planning out a TAS on this game would be crazy hard. I tried to mess around with this game before, I found that luck manipulate on item-drop on field map is almost impossible. I guess RNG don't change very well in this game.
Joined: 5/28/2007
Posts: 2
Location: Free Country USA
I'm very interested in seeing a TAS of this game, so I registered just to post about it.
I considered the possibility of a TAS of this game recently, and I think there are a few factors that need to be considered when making a run of this game.
Prior to Level 10, your Robots will be dangerously underpowered. It will take a mixture of good equipment, good Robot programming and godlike luck manipulation to avoid fighting every monster in sight, which is normally necessary to survive the boss battles. In these early stages, a good special attack to use is Melee/Bomb/Melee (RXR with the default loadout) since it hits all three monsters on the battlefield and usually results in a quick kill. And once you can build Axes and Shields, do so. Your attack and defense will skyrocket when your Robots are carrying these items.
You only ever need two Robots to finish the game. The second Robot is typically useful as a boss killer, since the game states that it automatically performs better with melee weapons. Build it as soon as you can, program it for high damage, give it an Axe weapon and a decent shield, and it will be nearly unstoppable.
Sword 4 Lv9 and Axe 3 Lv9 are the best weapons in the game. Once you get these, you don't need anything else. Sword 4 lets you be incredibly lazy with non-boss battles outside of a few specific (and avoidable) cases. If you need to win a battle quickly, you only need to turn your robot around and use a special to attack twice. This way, it counts as an attack from behind in addition to the increased damage you get from that special, which is more than enough to kill just about anything. Meanwhile, Axe 3 is the most powerful and easy-to-use weapon in the game (especially against bosses), with a faster attack rate than Blade 4 and a higher chance of critical hits, especially if you give it to Robot #2.
Once you gain access to the Rococo Sewers, you can cheat like crazy. Reprogram Robot #2 and pour EVERYTHING into Power and Charge, and equip it with Axe 3. This is so you're strong enough and fast enough to go around fighting the Shell crabs just inside the entrance for massive Experience. With good luck manipulation you could power-level yourself high enough to avoid unnecessary battles for the rest of the game and save huge amounts of time from that point on.
Knowing these key points, and provided the RNG can be figured out, the game's difficulty can be easily stacked in the player's favor early on, making for a fast and extremely efficient TAS.
Yeah power-leveling in the sewers is a good idea... the houses give like 30megs each I think... as long as we can manipulate luck well enough to destroy them easily.
I'm not so sure if a shield will be needed, depending on how well luck can be manipulated... just using savestates though it seemed as though there is poor luck manipulation possibilities in this game, but I'm no expert on these type of things
Joined: 5/28/2007
Posts: 2
Location: Free Country USA
A shield is very handy throughout the game. You only need Axes until you find Sword 4 and enough parts to build Axe 3, and you'll probably only need one or two special attacks, none of which require anything more than a melee weapon and a Bomb pack. With the right kind of shield equipped, and good luck manipulation, you would be able to force all incoming attacks to either miss (which is less likely) or bounce off the shield and do nothing (which is more likely, the better your defense is). A good example early on would be the fight with Meta Crab. His claw attacks will knock your Robot to the back of the arena even if they "miss", but if they are deflected, your Robot won't budge.
Hey everyone,
I've been entranced watching TASs of my favorite old RPGs for the past week or so, and I want to do a run of my own. One of my favorites from the SNES era that doesn't get the credit I think it deserves is the Enix RPG Robotrek.
I remember the game being quite difficult when I was young'un, but with luck manipulation, I think it could be completed pretty quickly. There are a bunch of random elements (capsules in battle for example) that with exploitation could make the game pretty quick, plus you can avoid battles by not touching enemies.
Is there any interest in a TAS of Robotrek? Is anyone aware of any work done previously on strategies, good robot builds, etc?
- Trevor
I'd love to see a TAS of this. I don't remember anything about the game, other than it being hard, though.
Also, there's an existing thread on this game. Check it out:
http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5581
Here's a WIP for Robotrek. It's more than an hour long and I figured I should get some feedback before continuing. I've been learning TASing as I go, so the first section might have more issues than the later ones.
There are some decisions I'd change if I were to start over, but luck manipulation is pretty brutal (at least for me) and any changes made desyncs the whole thing. Because I started this on a whim, I'm using an old version of Bizhawk (2.9.1) since I never actually intended to do more than just testing and feasibility. Any feedback would be appreciated and I'll try to answer any questions as well.
https://tasvideos.org/UserFiles/Info/639178409265548031
I've decided to start over for this TAS. I'm at the final boss (first form) and it's a difficult fight due to some of the decisions I made earlier. I could brute force a solution, but that time would be better spent on a restart I was planning to do anyways. The fight would look rather sloppy as well.
I did find a way to manipulate critical hits as the first attack, so I'll be able to OHKO the first 5 bosses to save several minutes. Next, I should be able to save more time due to some routing and equipment changes. I've found a way to manipulate capsules appearing after battle (but not the contents), and I've found some enemy loot information to help decide which enemies to manipulate. I should be able to get some of the better equipment earlier this way. I'll be sticking with Punch 3 instead of Axe 3, since the critical hit rate is much higher with Punch 3 (25% vs. 6.25%). I'm also planning to power level/grind on crabs to get vanish (level 20) earlier to speed up the remaining 5 (?) dungeons. I estimate that I should only need to defeat 6 crabs and I should be able to do it along the way through the sewers. I'll need to do further testing, but the eye test tells that you move faster when using vanish as well.
Sounds like starting over was the right call. TASing can be an iterative process, at least if you have the patience for it. It'll all help make the run better.
One_Hunnerd wrote:
I'll need to do further testing, but the eye test tells that you move faster when using vanish as well.
You could use RAM Search/Watch to find your character's X and Y positions, and check against a future frame to make sure something speeds you up. There's a full guide, but the short version, for X position for example:
Search for "Equal to" while doing anything except moving horizontally, including automatically/in cutscenes
Move left, change to Not Equal, and Search again
Repeat these, especially step 2, until you've found some promising-looking addresses
Sometimes the game supports a Poke of the value, which will teleport your character some. This is another clue you've found the right value.
You can do this for other things like (boss) HP too. Many values are represented like this, and it keeps you better informed.
Many thanks! I'm already using RAM Search/Watch to monitor the RNG chain, enemy HP, and a few other addresses. During my researching, I've found that the Robotrek speedrun community had already isolated some of these address. I was planning to do something similar to what you described, but the way you described it makes more sense. There are a few things that don't make sense to me, but I've only started to get into the weeds of RAM search.
Hopefully, outside of a few decision I'll be rectifying, the WIP looked decently polished. If there's anything else I can do to improve the run before I restart, it'd be great to know before I'd have to start over again. :)
I've been doing a lot of testing and I have a few more ideas to clean up the route. I'm pretty sure I have a good grip on manipulating drops now. In testing, it's just a flat 1/4 chance. Meaning, within every 4 frames, a capsule will drop, so delaying (that is, closing the post battle message window) up to 4 frames after battle will make a capsule drop. The drop table is static and based on enemy formation. There are common drops, rare drops (1/16), and super rare drops (1/256). These drops are based on the RAM address 0x81052A. When the byte ends with 0 (0x?0), a rare drop will occur. When the byte is 0x00, a super rare drop will occur. Any other value will drop common loot.
So the big changes are: First, manipulate 7500G from the first Mine at the river. This spot is easy because the stairs prevent the Quickbird and next Mine from initiating a battle, but they still move around to advance the RNG. Since the capsule disappears if you go off screen, the setup here works great to get it. Ideally, I want the wait to be no more than a few seconds, but I'll have to balance the difficulty of getting the exact drop with the amount of time I need to wait. I only need 7140G for the run, so this will save time getting money from opening other capsules/hidden spots. The game also gives you another 2000G as rewards, but the only other accessible/realistic money drops are 1000G or less. It will be faster to manipulate the 7500G drop.
The major equipment pieces of equipment I need are: Shield 2, Boots 4, Shield Pack, Punch 3, Shield 5, and Boots 5. Instead of making Shield 2 for the Meta Crab fight, I can OHKO him and get a Shield 2 from the family shrine. By saving the Scrap 5 from the tool shop and not making Shield 2, I can combine this with the Scrap 3 from the Old Mansion to make early Boots 4. Having the movement from Boots 4 will allow me to OHKO the next 4 bosses. Crit manipulation and movement will save a lot of time, especially on the Mamurana fight.
Next, at some point before making the Chameleon Glasses, I will manipulate a Punch 3 drop from a Spider 2. All Spider 2 formations drop it as a super rare, so the plan is to defeat one in the volcano with other enemies around to advance the RNG as before. I can skip picking up (2) Scrap 4s (Punch + Scrap 4 = Higher tier Punch) and have one less punch 1 to make. Finally, for Shield 5 and Boots 5, I can get (2) Scrap 9s as rare drops from CannonX in the Biolab instead of super rare drops from Turbos, and there are two CannonX formations I need along the path to the R&D room to make the glasses. I'll still need one more scrap 9, but I'll grab the one in the money room I need to visit for the plot. I can grab the money for Kotetsu, sword 4 and scrap 9 all at once. I'll still need a Scrap 3 for the Boots 5, but I can get one from a Ho Ho in the Old House or from CannonX right after the laser barrier on the way to the R&D Room. There's a Ho Ho right beside the Scrap 3 I'll pickup for Boots 4 and a few others on the way out of the Old House. Ho Ho will probably be faster to get the Scrap 3 because the nearest enemy around to advance the RNG is another CannonX I need for the Scrap 9. This means I'd have to reload the room or get it on the way back. I'd prefer to make everything at once when I visit the R&D room, but I'll still have to craft a few more items like the Shield Pack and Vanish.
I'm prioritizing all these drops because getting them as rare drops is trivial and fast. The super rare drops may involve some waiting around for 0x00, but is easier to do now than I knew before. I'd like to speed up the purchase of Punch 1s and combining for Punch 3 Lv9, but I don't think battling for them is faster than just making them. Other than that, once these items are obtained, the only other big change is power leveling on Shells to level 20 in the Sewers. I'll only need to defeat 7 at most, and I can do this along the way through the sewers. This will let me get Vanish earlier and go through the remaining dungeons easier. I won't have to lose frames dodging enemies for the final dungeons, but it may be less entertaining.
Finally, I've eliminated buying items. I've opted to get the 2 required items, clean for rusty drill and repair for Napoleon elsewhere. Clean as a common loot drop from a Mine, and Repair from the forced battle with Monks in the Old House. I'll avoid using smoke and just manipulate enemies out of the way or dodge them when unavoidable until I get Vanish. With these big changes and item manipulation resolved, I think I'm ready to start again.
Some good ideas here! I haven't had time yet to really map out some ideas and do damage tests, so I'm just going to drop some alternative ideas to think about and first-impression thoughts.
Cleans are all over the place for free, so you absolutely don't want one from an enemy encounter. Even if it's a forced battle, the time waiting for the enemy to disappear and the capsule to appear is slower than just grabbing one. Best candidate is probably Father's House bookshelf when you first visit him, but there's also one in our house and maybe the Tool Shop. Tool Shop also has a hidden repair if you want to take that one for Napoleon in the endgame.
This proposed route has a LOT of forced drops, and I'm not sure they're necessary. The early 7500 GP drop is one I always suspected is good just because it eliminates any chance of money issues, but I'm not even sure if this equipment is needed. I believe every boss except maybe Gateau 1's soldiers can be blocked, and blocking is based on global frame counter. It is exceedingly easy to completely negate all damage if you have control over the frame counter, as long as they don't use any attack that can't be blocked. I think De Rose's laser and bomb can't, but the head smash definitely can. You might just be able to find an RNG seed for most of these endgame fights that give you 4-5 blockable attacks and then force those. For final Gateau, you might just take Shield 4 and some HP so you can survive 3 of his 5 possible actions. That'd eliminate the need for Shield 5, Boots 5, and Shield Pack, which cuts out like 5k GP and 2-3 scrap drops. This would also let you keep Bomb 1 equipped for the entire run, which allows you to always use RXR to clear forced encounters without needing to change equipment or reprogram.
As for our weapon choice....I think punch 3 is likely still the best choice over axe 3 because it gives you the most options for RNG seeds that will give crits. RNG is extremely robust in combat, and only advances when an action is taken, so you're really at the mercy of your starting value. RNG incorporates the frame count every time it is called, so you can burn a few frames before fights to change the starting value, but I can't really estimate how much time you save with axe 3's substantially higher power (120 vs 78 for punch 3) compared to how much you lose from forcing a suitable RNG seed that gives multiple 1/16 crits and blockable boss actions (compared to punch 3's 1/4 crit rate).
I'll hopefully have some more time this week to spend with my damage calculator to figure out how many hits you save with axe 3, and some damage thresholds for weapon level with both axe and punch, because I suspect we'll also want to force Equip Level Up rolls from battle capsules. Combination takes 12 seconds roughly (and 8 seconds to craft an item), so we'll save time if we can force the capsule contents and take a turn in under 12 seconds. We'll save even more if we have to craft the combined item or grab it from a chest. In an RTA it takes like 2.5 minutes to craft 8 items and combine them to fully level a weapon; TAS would save some time from menuing but still would be eating at least 2 minutes of time. When I was digging into things, I either didn't look how to force the battle capsule contents, or I don't remember what the result was, but either way there are several forced combats throughout this game that I hope we can manipulate to get these levels. In that case, the sooner we can get our final weapon, the sooner we can take advantage of those to get levels.
Forced non-boss combats that I can remember (I'm certain I'm forgetting a few in prison rooms, etc):
Father's House: Hacker
Cave: Hacker guarding Meta Crab's room
Old House x4: Monks in basement (extremely dangerous)
Old House: Hacker in Flavon's room
Volcano base: Hacker in Cafeteria
Mayor's house: Hacker guarding door
Mayor's house: Hacker's friend guarding other door
Air Base: Hacker at crab buffet
Cave (Past): Big Fan at cave entrance
Cave (Past): Big Fan after De Rose drops you in a hole (skippable with vanish)
Cave (Past): Big Fan guarding Napoleon
At least one more in the final area, but I imagine we want max level far before this
So...some weapon routing thoughts:
Punch 3: The soonest we make a Punch 3 drop is in Cave (force a punch 2 drop from formation 0x75 and combine with scrap 4 from minecart room). If we force a levelup from Fight 1 and craft it there, we could start leveling it as early as the Meta Crab fight (we don't have any equipment that grants block, so we'd just need to roll a natural dodge somehow). The earliest raw drop we could get is in Volcano, which means we'd miss out on Fights 3 and 4, and two bosses. I don't remember if we can block Monks at all, so the four battles of Fight 3 might not be safe for capsules. That still misses out on 3 equipment levels, and might put us quickly behind pace for Big Eye. The main concern for him is that I'm not entirely sure if every hit of RRR can connect, due to the way blocking works. Blocking rate is on a 32-frame rule based on when the attack animation hits the target, where 24 consecutive frames result in a hit and the next 8 result in a block. Punch 3 RRR is 9 consecutive hit attempts, and I'm not sure it is mathematically possible for all 9 to hit. We would need to time out the animation, or I guess just test firing that attack on 32 consecutive frames.
Axe 3: We can force an Axe 3 drop as early as the first screen of Forest of Illusion. We'd miss out on Fights 1 and 2 and Meta Crab, but could get levels from every remaining fight. It is also outrageously powerful, and we can connect with all 3 hits on Big Eye. I think it saves a hit on De Rose compared to Punch 3, which lowers the block burden, but again any of these multi-turn fights are going to run into issues with RNG seeds.
I think we might actually want to consider rushing Charge and then taking the minimum Attack needed to guarantee OHKOs, so that we minimize the enemy actions in these combats where we want to open capsules. Even for bosses, we might want to sacrifice some Attack in order to make sure the early/mid-game bosses only get one action between ours. Hard to say, because reallocating points also costs time. Speed won't be important for boss fights if we're relying on block because crits can't miss and block doesn't care about Speed.
Really sorry about how disorganized my thoughts have been here, I just keep thinking of new things and am running out of time tonight. I wanted to put some thoughts here as soon as I could though, so you could also do some thinking on them before starting. A lot of this route depends on early actions!
Edit: Added the other forced encounters that I forgot about!
Cleans are all over the place for free, so you absolutely don't want one from an enemy encounter. Even if it's a forced battle, the time waiting for the enemy to disappear and the capsule to appear is slower than just grabbing one. Best candidate is probably Father's House bookshelf when you first visit him, but there's also one in our house and maybe the Tool Shop. Tool Shop also has a hidden repair if you want to take that one for Napoleon in the endgame.
I did test both of these. Ignoring the battle to defeat the Mine, it took 103 frames to get a clean after the battle ended. Since you can talk to Father from across the table, running up to get the clean will cost 96 frames. The capsule drop was with a plan of leveling along the way. However, if non-forced battles are skipped, getting the clean from Father's House will be faster. There's a Mine on the bridge, that can't be avoided unless you run around since the bridge is two tiles wide. Still, even dodging that battle might be faster than taking a battle. Fighting a single mine with loading before and after the battle took 530 frames (320 for the battle alone). So dodging the mine would need to take fewer frames than this. For repair, there's the one in Father's house as well. Initially, I was going to get both here. After testing, I only lost 6 frames getting one from the 4x monk forced encounter, but getting it from Father's house added 16 frames from the additional movement.
I believe every boss except maybe Gateau 1's soldiers can be blocked, and blocking is based on global frame counter. It is exceedingly easy to completely negate all damage if you have control over the frame counter, as long as they don't use any attack that can't be blocked. I think De Rose's laser and bomb can't, but the head smash definitely can. You might just be able to find an RNG seed for most of these endgame fights that give you 4-5 blockable attacks and then force those. For final Gateau, you might just take Shield 4 and some HP so you can survive 3 of his 5 possible actions. That'd eliminate the need for Shield 5, Boots 5, and Shield Pack, which cuts out like 5k GP and 2-3 scrap drops. This would also let you keep Bomb 1 equipped for the entire run, which allows you to always use RXR to clear forced encounters without needing to change equipment or reprogram.
Indeed. Being able to block Meta Crab is what started me down this rabbit hole. During the making of the old/test TAS, there were a few attacks that I couldn't seem to block. I didn't make note of them at the time, but I found a workaround either way. It might be the way the attack animates. For instance, to block the lightning from Mamurana, the block window needs to coincide with the lightning appearing at the top of the screen, instead of when your robot flinches. I don't have the animation timings or anything that in depth, but I should probably start looking further into it.
I did run into some issue running Shield 2 + Boots 4. Not having enough speed means those low % chance hits, still happen pretty often. Gateau 1 with Shield 2 + Boots 4 wasted a lot of time because while you can easily block one attack, you can't always block multiple attacks if multiple enemies get a turn before your next. Gateau or the soldiers would eventually get a hit in. Gateau having 42% chance to hit with Shield Pack, and 56% without, while not being able to block everything made me give up on that idea. Perhaps better seeding would help. For Gateau 2, with a full gear setup, Shield 5 felt better and was faster than Shield 4, but that could just be down to RNG differences. This fight is long even with good crits. One test I did (with Shield 2) had the first 4 hits land as critical. I still died because this fight is a slugfest, and all the actions I could take ended in death. Not having a second robot hurt quite a bit in this instance. However, with better seeding this could be resolved too.
I'll hopefully have some more time this week to spend with my damage calculator to figure out how many hits you save with axe 3, and some damage thresholds for weapon level with both axe and punch, because I suspect we'll also want to force Equip Level Up rolls from battle capsules. Combination takes 12 seconds roughly (and 8 seconds to craft an item), so we'll save time if we can force the capsule contents and take a turn in under 12 seconds. We'll save even more if we have to craft the combined item or grab it from a chest. In an RTA it takes like 2.5 minutes to craft 8 items and combine them to fully level a weapon; TAS would save some time from menuing but still would be eating at least 2 minutes of time. When I was digging into things, I either didn't look how to force the battle capsule contents, or I don't remember what the result was, but either way there are several forced combats throughout this game that I hope we can manipulate to get these levels. In that case, the sooner we can get our final weapon, the sooner we can take advantage of those to get levels.
It'll likely have to be single enemies and use blocking to make the most of it. That simple enough to manipulate, the only concern is that ensuring the right capsule appears while also forcing the number of enemies may mean sacrificing frames to get them to align. It shouldn't be a lot, but should be taken into account. Getting Boots 4 early will be necessary to do anything battle capsule related, since the robot walks too slow and is distance limited. I'll look into getting Scrap 3 earlier, but it looks like Ho Ho (0x0C) in the Old House might be the earliest drop capsule drop, but there's already a Scrap 3 there.
Forced non-boss combats that I can remember (I'm certain I'm forgetting a few in prison rooms, etc)
There are also two in the Mayor's House you fight before battling Papamecha. While one isn't forced, it's better to defeat the second guard to avoid mousing around. I'll look to see if there are any more.
Punch 3: The soonest we make a Punch 3 drop is in Cave (force a punch 2 drop from formation 0x75 and combine with scrap 4 from minecart room). If we force a levelup from Fight 1 and craft it there, we could start leveling it as early as the Meta Crab fight (we don't have any equipment that grants block, so we'd just need to roll a natural dodge somehow). The earliest raw drop we could get is in Volcano, which means we'd miss out on Fights 3 and 4, and two bosses. I don't remember if we can block Monks at all, so the four battles of Fight 3 might not be safe for capsules. That still misses out on 3 equipment levels, and might put us quickly behind pace for Big Eye. The main concern for him is that I'm not entirely sure if every hit of RRR can connect, due to the way blocking works. Blocking rate is on a 32-frame rule based on when the attack animation hits the target, where 24 consecutive frames result in a hit and the next 8 result in a block. Punch 3 RRR is 9 consecutive hit attempts, and I'm not sure it is mathematically possible for all 9 to hit. We would need to time out the animation, or I guess just test firing that attack on 32 consecutive frames.
Here's another wrinkle. In some places in the game, the RNG is static outside of battle. Two places that come to mind are the Old House and the Past Cave. In the Old house, the RNG will not cycle outside of battle until after you talk with Flavon. In the Past Cave, much of the dungeon the RNG is static. Speaking of animation timings, perhaps you can tell me a bit more about an odd situation I've seen in some RTA attempts and my own tests. During Gateau 2, the beach soldier attack is very long and drawn out. I been able to replicate blocking this attack. You hear the blocking sound, and your robot does not flinch, but since the attack is so long, the game display it as a "miss." I suspect that this attack hits multiple times over the course of the animation, but since you've blocked it, it would be unfair to still take a hit.
I think we might actually want to consider rushing Charge and then taking the minimum Attack needed to guarantee OHKOs, so that we minimize the enemy actions in these combats where we want to open capsules. Even for bosses, we might want to sacrifice some Attack in order to make sure the early/mid-game bosses only get one action between ours. Hard to say, because reallocating points also costs time. Speed won't be important for boss fights if we're relying on block because crits can't miss and block doesn't care about Speed.
I'm sure we can devise a way to OHKO all the bosses up with less than 1000 HP. That may mean manipulating capsules first, but as you mentioned, sacrificing some power could help. I was able to defeat all the bosses except meta crab (too slow) with front facing critical attacks, so getting behind them (assuming we have boots 4) could help with having lower power. Some bosses are almost impossible to get behind without RUN commands though. I'm lookin at you Bugbug. Also, not having enough speed means one less way to dodge attacks. This isn't as important early game, but it was very helpful for long fights like Gateau 1 and 2. I'll have to look at my notes and playtest, but I don't remember if I could block the soldier's Disable Attack during Gateau 1. Not having enough speed means game over.
Great thoughts, let's keep routing! I can test anything you need since I have the whole thing done. I could use cheats to setup builds for testing as well.
I did test both of these. Ignoring the battle to defeat the Mine, it took 103 frames to get a clean after the battle ended. Since you can talk to Father from across the table, running up to get the clean will cost 96 frames. The capsule drop was with a plan of leveling along the way. However, if non-forced battles are skipped, getting the clean from Father's House will be faster. There's a Mine on the bridge, that can't be avoided unless you run around since the bridge is two tiles wide. Still, even dodging that battle might be faster than taking a battle. Fighting a single mine with loading before and after the battle took 530 frames (320 for the battle alone). So dodging the mine would need to take fewer frames than this. For repair, there's the one in Father's house as well. Initially, I was going to get both here. After testing, I only lost 6 frames getting one from the 4x monk forced encounter, but getting it from Father's house added 16 frames from the additional movement.
Great testing! Glad you looked into it. I did some more testing with the "walk past enemies using menu" thing I talked to you about before. I think I was misremembering, because I'm not able to open my menu unless I'm standing on a whole tile. However, we can menu when enemies are on half tiles and walking towards us: https://thesupersnes.tv/images/Robotrek/Robotrek_walkpastenemy.mp4 . If the enemy is fast enough, like Mines and most Cmdrs, and if they continue to run forward, you'll skip the encounter. It'll work on the bridge here, but you can't use it to skip Gels at the end of the screen because they're too slow. I think in most cases it is likely slower than just running around the enemy, but it could be useful somewhere!
I did run into some issue running Shield 2 + Boots 4. Not having enough speed means those low % chance hits, still happen pretty often. Gateau 1 with Shield 2 + Boots 4 wasted a lot of time because while you can easily block one attack, you can't always block multiple attacks if multiple enemies get a turn before your next. Gateau or the soldiers would eventually get a hit in. Gateau having 42% chance to hit with Shield Pack, and 56% without, while not being able to block everything made me give up on that idea. Perhaps better seeding would help. For Gateau 2, with a full gear setup, Shield 5 felt better and was faster than Shield 4, but that could just be down to RNG differences. This fight is long even with good crits. One test I did (with Shield 2) had the first 4 hits land as critical. I still died because this fight is a slugfest, and all the actions I could take ended in death. Not having a second robot hurt quite a bit in this instance. However, with better seeding this could be resolved too.
Yea that's kind of what I feared. I don't remember blocking the Soldiers before, and they tend to follow up Gateau's actions really quickly. The other option is to use the secret tech and abuse Shield 4. Shield 4 is super bugged and IIRC it actually reduces the damage from every attack that makes your robot glow red. That is all elemental attacks and also all attacks that inflict disable, including the Soldier shots. The big concern is that I believe it also removes your ability to evade those attacks, so we'd be eating every "Disable RUN" attack. That fight might need some substantial testing, because I think that will be the biggest concern in the run. I'll do some more thinking, too.
It'll likely have to be single enemies and use blocking to make the most of it. That simple enough to manipulate, the only concern is that ensuring the right capsule appears while also forcing the number of enemies may mean sacrificing frames to get them to align. It shouldn't be a lot, but should be taken into account. Getting Boots 4 early will be necessary to do anything battle capsule related, since the robot walks too slow and is distance limited. I'll look into getting Scrap 3 earlier, but it looks like Ho Ho (0x0C) in the Old House might be the earliest drop capsule drop, but there's already a Scrap 3 there.
I'd have to assume it is still faster to just pick up the Scrap 3 from the capsule. It is still technically the earliest place to get it, since the Ho-ho encounter that drops it only shows up in the west wing, but it requires a little bit of extra walking to collect. I doubt it is faster to manipulate a drop, but might be worth checking.
Is there a reason why capsule encounters need minimum enemies? I'm not actually sure what is best there myself. My initial impression would be to have high enough charge that only one enemy gets an action after you open the capsule, then RXR the encounter away. The more experience you get per encounter, the better overall I'd think. We lose time on the RXR animation but maybe the experience makes up for it? It scales it such an aggressive way that I'm not sure getting an extra 1.4 Megs really amounts to much overall, but maybe it if happens enough then we can cut out a Shell encounter later.
There are also two in the Mayor's House you fight before battling Papamecha. While one isn't forced, it's better to defeat the second guard to avoid mousing around. I'll look to see if there are any more.
....oh you're absolutely right. I forgot about that entire section of the game. Hahaha. Thank you!
Here's another wrinkle. In some places in the game, the RNG is static outside of battle. Two places that come to mind are the Old House and the Past Cave. In the Old house, the RNG will not cycle outside of battle until after you talk with Flavon. In the Past Cave, much of the dungeon the RNG is static.
That's wild. I guess it'd likely be harder to force a Scrap 3 from Ho-ho then?
Speaking of animation timings, perhaps you can tell me a bit more about an odd situation I've seen in some RTA attempts and my own tests. During Gateau 2, the beach soldier attack is very long and drawn out. I been able to replicate blocking this attack. You hear the blocking sound, and your robot does not flinch, but since the attack is so long, the game display it as a "miss." I suspect that this attack hits multiple times over the course of the animation, but since you've blocked it, it would be unfair to still take a hit.
As far as I know, this attack can't be fully blocked. It'll make the *ting* of a block, but it still runs the calculation. I've been hit cleanly from a block, I've been crit, and I've dodged, but I've never fully blocked that attack. I think it secretly is attempting multiple hits like Punch 3, and you can't block them all because of animation timings.
I'm sure we can devise a way to OHKO all the bosses up with less than 1000 HP. That may mean manipulating capsules first, but as you mentioned, sacrificing some power could help. I was able to defeat all the bosses except meta crab (too slow) with front facing critical attacks, so getting behind them (assuming we have boots 4) could help with having lower power. Some bosses are almost impossible to get behind without RUN commands though. I'm lookin at you Bugbug. Also, not having enough speed means one less way to dodge attacks. This isn't as important early game, but it was very helpful for long fights like Gateau 1 and 2. I'll have to look at my notes and playtest, but I don't remember if I could block the soldier's Disable Attack during Gateau 1. Not having enough speed means game over.
As far as early bosses go, Mamurana will never change rows, so you're free to open as many off-row capsules as you want before she clones. It is pretty easy to open with a back-attack in this manner, too, so that could help with being underleveled and having low power. Big Eye has some attack script that causes him to fly across the screen after a few actions, so you can force back attack there by just wasting a turn (by opening a capsule??). I abuse this behavior in RTA to get consistent back attacks, though I set it up with deaths. Papamecha only has 540 HP so a front crit is fine, and by this point we'll be max strength anyways..
Bugbug behavior is weird. I've gotten him in loops where he just attacks and then shifts one row and I could get a lot of back attacks in a row. Most of the time he retreats and backs into the corner so you can't do anything. Hopefully you can just get the miracle luck and not have to worry about it.
Great testing! Glad you looked into it. I did some more testing with the "walk past enemies using menu" thing I talked to you about before. I think I was misremembering, because I'm not able to open my menu unless I'm standing on a whole tile. However, we can menu when enemies are on half tiles and walking towards us: https://thesupersnes.tv/images/Robotrek/Robotrek_walkpastenemy.mp4 . If the enemy is fast enough, like Mines and most Cmdrs, and if they continue to run forward, you'll skip the encounter. It'll work on the bridge here, but you can't use it to skip Gels at the end of the screen because they're too slow. I think in most cases it is likely slower than just running around the enemy, but it could be useful somewhere!
Wow! That is slick! I can think of about 3-4 places I'd love to use that! Biolab and Air Fortress commanders and two tile spots are begging for this. I've been able to manually dodge enemies out of the way (i.e. they turn before I touch them) but that can sometime be a lot of work and frame delays. The downside is that I can usually manipulate the enemy out of the way, even when delaying frames, in less time that it takes to open the menu and close the menu. Still, it could be useful for some of the more challenging spots.
Yea that's kind of what I feared. I don't remember blocking the Soldiers before, and they tend to follow up Gateau's actions really quickly. The other option is to use the secret tech and abuse Shield 4. Shield 4 is super bugged and IIRC it actually reduces the damage from every attack that makes your robot glow red. That is all elemental attacks and also all attacks that inflict disable, including the Soldier shots. The big concern is that I believe it also removes your ability to evade those attacks, so we'd be eating every "Disable RUN" attack. That fight might need some substantial testing, because I think that will be the biggest concern in the run. I'll do some more thinking, too.
After hitting a wall a few times with this fight and the next, I'm a bit weary of not having enough speed in the late game. At that point, it's almost to late to go back and it's a lot of work to change previous parts since everything is so RNG dependent. I've deleted/added a single frame and in most cases, everything that follows desyncs. That doesn't mean I'm not willing to test it. I've started over about 4 times because I keep find better ways to do things and I like testing. Speaking of testing....
I'd have to assume it is still faster to just pick up the Scrap 3 from the capsule. It is still technically the earliest place to get it, since the Ho-ho encounter that drops it only shows up in the west wing, but it requires a little bit of extra walking to collect. I doubt it is faster to manipulate a drop, but might be worth checking.
Is there a reason why capsule encounters need minimum enemies? I'm not actually sure what is best there myself. My initial impression would be to have high enough charge that only one enemy gets an action after you open the capsule, then RXR the encounter away. The more experience you get per encounter, the better overall I'd think. We lose time on the RXR animation but maybe the experience makes up for it? It scales it such an aggressive way that I'm not sure getting an extra 1.4 Megs really amounts to much overall, but maybe it if happens enough then we can cut out a Shell encounter later.
It is faster just to get the Scrap 3 from the capsule. I did do some additional testing and the Ho Ho beside the capsule containing Scrap 3 is 0x0C as well. There is a monk past the passage above that room that I forced to help cycle the RNG so I could get a second Scrap 3. I was able to get this manipulation done in less than 3 seconds game time. The only reason for minimum enemies is as your surmised: the speed vs EXP tradeoff. I just envisioned a scenario around where you'd have to do blocking when multiple enemies are present, but I didn't fully think that one through. Opening the capsule costs very little fuel, so we'd be ready to battle again before the first enemy finishes attacking.
That's wild. I guess it'd likely be harder to force a Scrap 3 from Ho-ho then?
It definitely caught me off guard, but you still work around it. In the Old House, it won't affect anything. It's cutscenes, then 4x Monks, then Flavon. The first Ho Ho you fight in the next room will have RNG working as normal. See above about forcing Scrap 3 drops. I've made a lua script that tracks and prints the hex values for 0x052A. I can force change these values by waiting an additional frame before closing the battle summary text. Here's an example. (I'm not a coder, so anyone reading please don't judge too harshly).
In the above, #1 is the Value after the battle is over. #12 is where the capsule appears onscreen, #22 is a Scrap 3 from a Ho Ho, and #28 would be a Scrap 9 from the same Ho Ho. The asterisk and arrows are my way to glance at the file to see if anything interesting happened. You need to open the capsule on the value before, e.g. #21 or #27, to get the drop you want. Since 052A changes when the enemies on the dungeon map move, having more enemies around speeds up getting the drop you want. This is also deterministic. As long as I don't change the RNG before the map loads after battle, this pattern will be the same if 1 enemy is around or 3 are around. The frame times/wait just gets longer with fewer enemies. If I don't like this pattern or I feel it takes too long to get the right drop, I can just adjust it by delaying a frame at the end of the battle.
As far as I know, this attack can't be fully blocked. It'll make the *ting* of a block, but it still runs the calculation. I've been hit cleanly from a block, I've been crit, and I've dodged, but I've never fully blocked that attack. I think it secretly is attempting multiple hits like Punch 3, and you can't block them all because of animation timings.
I assumed as such. I'll just try to manipulate that attack away.
As far as early bosses go, Mamurana will never change rows, so you're free to open as many off-row capsules as you want before she clones. It is pretty easy to open with a back-attack in this manner, too, so that could help with being underleveled and having low power. Big Eye has some attack script that causes him to fly across the screen after a few actions, so you can force back attack there by just wasting a turn (by opening a capsule??). I abuse this behavior in RTA to get consistent back attacks, though I set it up with deaths. Papamecha only has 540 HP so a front crit is fine, and by this point we'll be max strength anyways..
Bugbug behavior is weird. I've gotten him in loops where he just attacks and then shifts one row and I could get a lot of back attacks in a row. Most of the time he retreats and backs into the corner so you can't do anything. Hopefully you can just get the miracle luck and not have to worry about it.
Agreed. I think the hardest part of this setup would be manipulating capsule contents and the crit, but that's likely going to be trial and error. It'll be straightforward to do, I'll just have to make sure it happens. During my test, Bugbug 1 was an OHKO and Bugbug 2 was a 5 turn 4/4 critical with a defend before the final hit. I could never get behind him because he'd move, attack, then move again. With that luck though, it was a 30 second battle.
Edited to add a few more forced/non forced encounters
Father's House: Hacker
Cave: Gel 'guarding' drill location (not forced, but need to level up here anyways for speed reasons)
Cave: Hacker guarding Meta Crab's sauna room
Cave: Hacker guarding Meta Crab's boss room
Old House x4: Monks in basement (extremely dangerous)
Old House: Hacker in Flavon's room
Volcano base: Hacker in Cafeteria
Mayor's house: Hacker guarding door
Mayor's house: Hacker's friend guarding other door
Air Base: Hacker at crab buffet
Cave (Past): Big Fan at cave entrance
Cave (Past): Big Fan after De Rose drops you in a hole (skippable with vanish)
Cave (Past): Big Fan guarding Napoleon
Space Fortress: Hacker guarding fake princess
Some other battles that may take too long to avoid
Shrine: Monk (if choosing Axe 1 capsule; probably can't do the menu trick because monks move slow)
Fortress: Hidden Hacker in 1 tile hallway on the way to Blackmore; (Can be dodged, but may take time to lure out of the way)
Cave (Past): Big Fan in 1 tile hallway on the way to repair Napoleon. (Can be dodged, this one actively approaches you, I think)
Battle 6: Cave - 3x Commander (Boss Door); Capsule for +1 exp if only single spider encounter
Level up, Make Punch 3
Level 3 - Robot: 5 Energy, 45 Power
Battle 7: Cave - Meta Crab; Capsule for +1 Equipment level (Punch 3 Lv 2), OHKO
Battle 8-11: Old House - Monks; Aiming for maximum encounters for all the remaining common battles
Battle 12: Old House - Commanders in Flavon's room; Punch 3 Lv 3, Make Boots 4 (Scrap 5 + Scrap 3)
Battle 13: Clocktower - Mamurana; Punch 3 Lv 4+
Rushbird: I don't want to waste the Scrap 5 we pick up in the tool shop, since that'll be for Boots 4. I can't start leveling Punch 3 or even defeat Meta Crab without equipment that enables block. I won't get Boots 4 until the Old House, and the free shield in the Family Shrine isn't available until after we beat Meta Crab. Shield 2 from Rushbird is a super rare drop, but with up to 4 enemies around, I should be able to get it almost immediately. I'll be skipping both Gel encounters at the river, even if I have to go out of the way to avoid them.
Aiming for 5 Energy for safety and likely getting hit in Battles 1 and 3. I should be able to block the damage in Battles 5 and 6, but I need to have some room for error. The remaining encounters (Battle 14-29) are forced encounters, shells and bosses. I should have Punch 3 Lv9 after Papamecha at the latest.
The plan includes leveling on shells to level 20, of which only 8 are needed.
I need to test shield 4 on Gateau 2, but not having enough equipment based speed is rough. Here's a test I did with Shield 5, Boots 4 and Shield Pack. https://tasvideos.org/UserFiles/Info/639230457034221687
Some new stuff I discovered with this test.
Although the RNG is very robust, I managed to manipulate Gateau to change his attack to the ram attack by guarding. In the test, I got him to do it 14(!) times in a row. Then, several more times in a row further in the battle.
The bad news is that if the game wants to hit you, you're likely getting hit. With the above equipment, the calculator gives a 40% chance to get hit (with 99 speed). I manipulated the blocks, but halfway through, I was getting hit every turn, I just used the new guarding tech to stop it. Also, I used the new guarding tech 5 times in a row before it just stopped working. It started working again after taking damage (in the video there are 2 hits that miss) but wasn't nearly as consistent afterwards.
This test ended in failure primarily because I had absolutely abysmal crit luck. The robot dies because every action I take, including changing previous actions still leads to me getting hit. I'm going to redo this battle with Shield 4 since I can intentionally take 1 damage from the snowballs and fireballs. If that goes well, then I can safely ignore Boots 5 and Shield 5 for the final battle, otherwise I may route in one or both of them. Of course different seeding can help, but I don't want to redo a majority of the TAS because I found out too late that I can't defeat the final boss.
