Pressing L or R during a boost stops the boost, so it's best to start charging again exactly when the boost hits its peak (it drops off rapidly then anyway).
What if you press L/R to and hit a player/obstacle/wall during the hop while you're at the peak of the boost? Hitting something during a jump seems to prevent your speed from decreasing for a short while, and you could hopefully keep charging as normal.
Also, does doing a boost during a mushroom boost or after using a star give an even greater effect than normal? And I think I read something about how it's possible to use these boosts to cross over any body of deep water without even losing speed.
Huffers wrote:
Erm... how do I extract the movie file from the savestate?
Play the movie in non-read-only mode, then load the save state, and the movie you played will transform into the movie that leads up to the savestate, assuming there wasn't some desync along the way. (And, assuming you started recording a movie before running the bot. In which case you wouldn't need to extract it in the first place since you would already have it...)
Well once you get a bot that works well on time trials, you could potentially give each person a level to do (overnight), and hope to god that it doesn't desynch, once you hex-edit it in.
But with all the randomness (going through pipes) you've been having, it doesn't seem like such a good idea.
Is there a value in memory that changes when a boost is ready? That would make things real easy. =)
boost counter
7e10ca 1u (need 128)
Bah, I just came online to post that I've found it, and I've been beaten to it :)
The reason I didn't spot this boost counter earlier is because it isn't reset by driving into dirt - and I thought it would be.
Huffers wrote:
I have found the game records how many frames L/R and left/right have both been pressed in a row, but it doesn't reset this value when the kart hits dirt, but I'm almost certain the boost charge is reset when this happens.
Whoops ;-)
Also, this boost counter is 2 unsigned bytes, not one - it can go above 256.
A lot of what I posted above I've found to be wrong.
While being charged the boost counter appears to go up one per frame up to 20, then 2 per frame. It appears to charge for 2 frames after you've stopped charging it (this may be some sort of input-delay in snes9x).
Stopping charging resets the boost counter.
Hitting stuff doesn't reset it, nor does driving through dirt.
once you get to 128 or more, when you next reset the counter (by doing anything that can reset it, eg not pressing L/R or left/right), you get a boost when you next straighten out+aren't drifting sideways + aren't holding L/R/right/left... whatever you do in the mean time
even if you spin out, or hop again and start charging the boost counter again.
The only way you can appear not to get the boost, once it's gone from 128+ to 0 AFAIK, is to press L or R after the boost has started (you've straightened out etc), but before the boost is noticable.
If you straighten out in mid-air (remember the boost isn't noticable until you land), then press L/R this will then stop you from getting the boost (because the boost has kinda started, but it's just not noticable till you land).
Also, accelerate needs to be held as well to charge the boost.
Switching which of L/R is being pressed seems to sometimes reset the boost counter a few frames later, and sometimes not... not sure why yet.
nitsuga wrote:
What if you press L/R to and hit a player/obstacle/wall during the hop while you're at the peak of the boost? Hitting something during a jump seems to prevent your speed from decreasing for a short while, and you could hopefully keep charging as normal.
Also, does doing a boost during a mushroom boost or after using a star give an even greater effect than normal? And I think I read something about how it's possible to use these boosts to cross over any body of deep water without even losing speed.
good points... more investigation needing to be done.
This boost thing looks like it must have been an intentional feature, I wonder why Nintendo didn't document it?
edit: I think I've discovered why switching L/R during charging seemed to sometimes reset the boost-counter -- on my keyboard I can't press L,right, and accelerate at the same time, it cuts out one of the inputs.
edit: I think I've discovered why switching L/R during charging seemed to sometimes reset the boost-counter -- on my keyboard I can't press L,right, and accelerate at the same time, it cuts out one of the inputs.
Are you by any chance using a laptop, or a wireless keyboard? They tend to limit the number of keys you can press at once.
Maybe an external keyboard would do the trick, or a controller, but that means buying extra hardware :(.
It's not a factor of the interface to the computer so much as an inherent limitation of the usual key-reading mechanism itself. Which keys block others will vary based on the internal wiring of the keyboard.
If you map your face buttons to modifier keys (shoft, control, and alt) most keyboards will allow you to press any two other keys in combination with all of those without blocking, I think.
If you map your face buttons to modifier keys (shoft, control, and alt) most keyboards will allow you to press any two other keys in combination with all of those without blocking, I think.
Would you find the "shoft" key near the "any" key?
Actually, my friend's wireless keyboard won't even allow that.
I can't get boosting + hop + hit wall to get a long boost to work :(
I've seen videos of it done, but I haven't conclusively been able to get it to work with these new speed boosts or mushrooms :-/
One of the things you need to do to trigger that type of boost, is release the gas after collision. (I'm not using them myself so I wouldn't be able to give any better advice, I'm afraid.)
Edit: Also, it would only be worthwhile after a speed increase from a boost pad/arrow or Mushroom.
Andreas
Something I've noticed is that (especially with Yoshi) the sideways skid is not reset immediately when you turn the other way, so that countersteering after sliding around a turn can actually pull you around it tighter. Yoshi's physics are quirky in other ways, too... He slows down little enough in dirt (especially when hopping over the first bit) that it might be faster to cut across some corners even without a mushroom. Not that it really makes up for his overall lack of top speed, but it's something to think about, anyway.
Is the sideways slide simply added to your velocity? It might be possible to exploit some F-Zero-like "snaking" if that's the case.
One of the things you need to do to trigger that type of boost, is release the gas after collision. (I'm not using them myself so I wouldn't be able to give any better advice, I'm afraid.)
Edit: Also, it would only be worthwhile after a speed increase from a boost pad/arrow or Mushroom.
Andreas
Ah thanks, I was going crazy trying to get those extended boosts to work.
I suspect it won't be worthwile from a mini-boost either, but I'll try checking it out anyway.
NMcCoy wrote:
Is the sideways slide simply added to your velocity? It might be possible to exploit some F-Zero-like "snaking" if that's the case.
Nope, I don't think so. Sliding changes your direction, but not your speed.
Initially I thought that these mini-boosts obtained from sliding and releasing R were somehow caused by tricking the game into giving you slide velocity, but forwards, but now it's been shown that that isn't the case.
I had always thought sliding DECREASED velocity...interesting to know it doesn't!
me too, and I always thought hopping changed the kart's handling, but it doesn't - it's while you hold down hop or not
Edit: I've convinced Bisqwit to make me an editor, and made a page about Super Mario Kart's Physics which I intend to keep up to date with corrections, etc.
bah, was making some good progress on this.
but now my boot sector appears to be damaged and the harddrive with all my unbacked-up work in progress might be dead.
Joined: 11/29/2005
Posts: 317
Location: Sao Paulo - Brazil
Huffers wrote:
bah, was making some good progress on this.
but now my boot sector appears to be damaged and the harddrive with all my unbacked-up work in progress might be dead.
you can still recover your files
there are people who can do it, just call someone who works with it
bah, was making some good progress on this.
but now my boot sector appears to be damaged and the harddrive with all my unbacked-up work in progress might be dead.
you can still recover your files
there are people who can do it, just call someone who works with it
yeah, I think I'll probably (hopefully) be able to recover the files - but I don't have time to do anything about fixing that machine for about a week :(
We're back in business baby!
New hard drive + testdisk = system fullly up and running again with all partitions restored :-D
Not that I have any time to work on the run now, but I'm quite happy anyway.
We're back in business baby!
New hard drive + testdisk = system fullly up and running again with all partitions restored :-D
Not that I have any time to work on the run now, but I'm quite happy anyway.
That's great news. Hopefully you can optimize your bot even more, in the near future :).
