Posts for AndiHoffi

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Posted: 1/31/2013 12:15 PM
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AndiHoffi
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (161)
Joined: 1/1/2013
Posts: 43
Radiant wrote:
What makes this 100% completion? I thought that the game counted how many rooms you visited, but since you visit less rooms than the previous run, it clearly can't be that. So how do you define 100%?
100% completion in this case means that the game displays a completion of 100% at the end. For this you need to collect all the items and visit all 252 rooms at least once. The previous route needed 376 "room entrances" for this, while I need only 345 (i.e. visiting less rooms more than once). I did clarify the submission-text a little.
Posted: 1/31/2013 9:28 AM
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AndiHoffi
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (161)
Joined: 1/1/2013
Posts: 43
Randil wrote:
Perhaps an update to the any% run? You mentioned you found a few more frames there as well.
Yes, I will definitely do an update to the any%-run.
Posted: 1/27/2013 8:16 PM
Post subject: Re: Luck manipluation: Where can I start "going deep"?
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AndiHoffi
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (161)
Joined: 1/1/2013
Posts: 43
Problem solved. Seems as if I wrote the posting about an hour too early (after severy hours of trying though) In my case, the ram-search helped: Play for a while in the non-random part of the game and remove all addresses that changed. Enter a room with randomness involved and look at the addresses that changed now. There I found the entropy for the RNG. That was the solution for me and I am really happy that I do not have to dive into the code :-)
Posted: 1/27/2013 8:08 PM
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AndiHoffi
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (161)
Joined: 1/1/2013
Posts: 43
Randil wrote:
I've started looking into this a little, but I haven't been able to replicate it. Could you upload and send me your input file? It would make things easier for me. You can send the link to me in a PM if you want to keep the movie a secret for everyone else. :)
Got it! The enemy-behaviour is created from the addresses 07AA, 07AB, 07AC and 07AD. The RNG seems to be a pretty simple one that just spits out the same numbers in the same order every time the game is played. Thus it consumes one number each time a new random decision is needed: The initial movement of the random enemies and the new direction, if a random enemy hits a wall. Since there are not very many random enemies in the game at all, and the previous ocurrence of a random fellow is about 50 rooms before room 249 (the one with the enemy I want to manipulate), the outcome in this room seems pretty stable.
Posted: 1/27/2013 7:24 PM
Post subject: Luck manipluation: Where can I start "going deep"?
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AndiHoffi
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (161)
Joined: 1/1/2013
Posts: 43
Hi all, I am currently in the middle of doing a run on Solstice (NES). I am running out of ideas how to find out how the RNG works. Currently, I do see the current run, where one particular enemy behaves nicely and my run, where I need 24 frames more to pass it. I tried the usual suspects: delaying the game, providing some random input, entering the room multiple times (and from different doors), etc. But the enemy-behaviour seems to be pretty stable :( Thus I am afraid that I need to dive into the code and/or memory and figure out how the RNG works in detail. I do have a background in software engineering, but I have no idea, where to start. Can anybody give me some hints? Thank you Andreas
Posted: 1/27/2013 6:44 PM
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AndiHoffi
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (161)
Joined: 1/1/2013
Posts: 43
Randil wrote:
I've started looking into this a little, but I haven't been able to replicate it. Could you upload and send me your input file? It would make things easier for me. You can send the link to me in a PM if you want to keep the movie a secret for everyone else. :)
Thanks for the offer, I just sent you the link. If anybody else is interested in solving this problem, please let me know. The weird thing is, that the decision for the behaviour seems to be very stable! Using the TAS-Editor, I did watch the room very often using different movies before this room. Not a single time did it behave in my favor. I also tried pausing the game in the room before (to get the first frame on an uneven (or even) frame). Delaying entering the room by an even amount of frames did not change anything either :(
Posted: 1/23/2013 6:30 PM
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AndiHoffi
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (161)
Joined: 1/1/2013
Posts: 43
Randil wrote:
I'm afraid I don't know how RNG works in this game (I didn't even know about it!). But if you want, I can try to help out, I'm usually decent at finding out how RNG works in a game. Just give me a situation where enemy behaviour is random, and I can try to find out why.
Hi, thanks for the offer. Here are two screenshots, both 70 frames into the room without any movement. The first one is from your run, the second one is from mine. http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/577/randil.png/ http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/706/hoffi.png/ I have no idea, how to influence that behaviour. BTW: The current framecount is 3809. As I learned, the game is running at 60fps, so this should be 63 seconds. Since I tackled the most promising rooms first, I don't think, it will become much better anymore. And we do need an update on the any%-run as well. I found some more frames there as well :-) Edit: It's room 249
Posted: 1/22/2013 8:12 AM
Post subject: RNG
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AndiHoffi
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (161)
Joined: 1/1/2013
Posts: 43
Does anybody know how the RNG works? There are some rooms with random enemy-behaviour, that behaved more convenient in the currently published runs.
Posted: 1/9/2013 9:41 PM
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AndiHoffi
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (161)
Joined: 1/1/2013
Posts: 43
Just a quick update on the 100%-run: The new route seems to be working. I finished the castle, the caves and the Gardens of Pain (NW of the castle). Currently, I am about 50s (2500 frames) ahead :) I hope to find some more, but I guess, I will not break the minute-mark. Just to be sure that I did not forget any room, I added the remaining frames from the existing run to see the outcome and it did indeed show 100.00% completion.
Posted: 1/6/2013 1:40 PM
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AndiHoffi
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (161)
Joined: 1/1/2013
Posts: 43
CoolKirby wrote:
It's nice to see you credited him this time. No vote, but nice improvement.
Can you explain the reason for your vote? I would like to understand, what I can improve here.
Posted: 1/5/2013 8:07 PM
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AndiHoffi
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (161)
Joined: 1/1/2013
Posts: 43
Randil wrote:
Hmm, it's a little weird about the desynch. Do you know why the run desynched?
Yes: I inserted 6 frames between the rooms instead of removing them. I was a bit too tired that night :-) I also had a look at the rest of the run and tried some new things, but did not find another improvement. So I'll submit the run again then.
Posted: 1/5/2013 12:32 AM
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AndiHoffi
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (161)
Joined: 1/1/2013
Posts: 43
@Randil: After you found the 1-frame-improvement, I cancelled my submission and went back to optimizing the run. In room 236 (frame about 17355) I found another 6 frames: You did the spike-jump on the NE-side of the spikes. I changed that to the NW-side to make the jump go further. This way the initial waiting for the platform can be 6 frames shorter. The loading time for the next room remained unchanged, but the room does not sync anyway :( I will add the improvement to this post as soon as I have the sync fixed (probably monday).
Posted: 1/4/2013 11:19 AM
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AndiHoffi
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (161)
Joined: 1/1/2013
Posts: 43
Randil wrote:
It's common when people submit runs where most of the input has been copied from another player's TAS to submit it with the author name "(you) & (old TAS player)". In this case it means that the author name in the submission comments should be changed to "AndiHoffi & Randil's Solstice ... ". Personally I don't really mind, though in a way it would be reasonable to keep me as co-author if all but a few frames of the input is mine.
Done. I hope I did it it right. I don't want to step on anybodies toes here :) But this does not matter anyway since you found another improvement and I will cancel this submission. Let's go back to the solstice-thread and see if we can find more of them.
Posted: 1/4/2013 8:48 AM
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AndiHoffi
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (161)
Joined: 1/1/2013
Posts: 43
Randil wrote:
If you do indeed do your run from scratch (which I suggest, but it's of course your choice)
I had a closer look at your Any% run and did not find very much that I could improve. So I just changed two rooms, gained 18 frames in total and submitted it: http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13669. Since the run is copied by more than 99%, I am not sure how the formalities about the well earned co-authorship are working. About the 100% run: I think the route can be improved at several points. I began yesterday and am currently 150 frames ahead after about 20 rooms. Here I did not copy your moves but made the run from scratch. Until now the whole improvement comes from the new route. Inside of the rooms, I tried to do some things a little differently but did not find a single improvement yet.
Posted: 1/4/2013 8:22 AM
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AndiHoffi
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (161)
Joined: 1/1/2013
Posts: 43
Dwedit wrote:
If you copied an entire run, they are a co-author.
How can I aknowledge that? I tried my best thanking the author in the publication. Is there anything else I can (and should) do?
Posted: 1/2/2013 8:01 PM
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AndiHoffi
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (161)
Joined: 1/1/2013
Posts: 43
Randil wrote:
*It might be worth revising the route completely, at least for the 100% run. It would be awesome if you could find a completely new route.
Thank you for the tips. I do already have a 100% route that I hope to be faster than the current one. The main benefit comes from a different route in the caves. Please let me know if you would like to have a look at it (and if you know how to use GIMP2). I could definitely need someone who may have some ideas for finetuning it.
Posted: 1/2/2013 8:43 AM
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AndiHoffi
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (161)
Joined: 1/1/2013
Posts: 43
Randil wrote:
Cool, I'm interested in seeing where this improvement is. I still hope that you will try to find additional improvements, in particular the 100% run can probably be improved more. But as Scepheo says, an improvement is still an improvement and will indeed be accepted.
Thank you for the quick (and constructive) response. I guess there are about 2 or 3 frames lost in another room. Let's see how it will work out tonight. BTW: I should not have read this thread in the morning. Now I have to wait all day until the evening before I can start the actual work :)
Posted: 1/2/2013 12:00 AM
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AndiHoffi
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (161)
Joined: 1/1/2013
Posts: 43
Hi all, I was just in the middle of planning a new 100% route, when I found the possibility of a small improvement for the Any% run. This will save 10 or 11 frames and I am not sure if this improvement would have a chance of getting published. I would only change the route in one single room by using a hidden stone the current author seems to have overseen. The rest of the run would remain 100% the same. Is this worth doing and submitting or will it probably be rejected since the change is too small?
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