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I have discovered how the boss in Wily Stage 1 works:
If the frame counter (00F3) is set at a multiple of 20 (hex) it fires a platform that Mega Man can jump on. This is just like the frame counter thing I discovered in Mega Man 3 with the boss invincibility. It has a lot of uses now.
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kuja killer wrote:
Oh god i remember when i was dealing with that a couple years ago on my megaman 3 rom hack, when i first was looking into how the boss invulnerable time worked. That was the most wackiest freaky thing i ever seen. That format was super freaking weird, cause none of the other NES mm's did it. How their HP is shared by the invulnerable time in those multiples of 20.
I just said "screw it" and coded it to be based on mm4-6 where it's just a simple normal countdown timer of like 6 frames for normal enemies, 30 frames (hex) for bosses.
That sounded like the easiest thing to do. It shocked me when I found out why the boss invincibility seemed kind of off. Sometimes I get 25 frames and other times 28 then I tested the frame counter and it turned out the boss invincibility doesn't have its own invincibility counter. This means that whenever I complete a stage the amount of time saved will be based somewhat off the frame counter (the amount of frames would probably be a multiple of four). This also means that I would have to allow for lag since the in-game frame counter (004F) doesn't count frames of lag.
Another thing I noticed is that Mega Man's plasma cannon and similar shooting weapons are 4.00 pixels instead of 4.33 (hex) like Mega Man 4-6.
Also, here is the climbing part of Spark Man's level with Rush Coil (just another time saver idea):
http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/416401614/Rockman%203%20-%20Dr%20Wily%20no%20Saigo%21%20%28J%29-06rushcoil.fm2
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I figured out how the boss invincibility in this game works:
The boss invincibility is @ RAM address 04F0 and the value goes down 20 every four frames. It also acts as a life meter for the boss. If that value is anywhere above 20 the boss is invincible. It keeps going down 20 until it goes under 20.
You see the frame counter @ RAM address 004F? If it passes a number divisible by 4 the boss invincibility/life meter counts down.
The frame counter runs throughout the stages and it doesn't accept frames of lag.
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I made a brief demonstration TAS of the first 2 levels. I found a cool trick where you can fly backwards by jumping forward and pressing up+opposite direction you are facing+A+B (you may have to hold B for an additional frame). There is another glitch where pirates randomly walk of the ledge and kill themselves (this doesn't happen that often and I haven't figured out how to work it yet). I hope this is entertaining enough to get accepted (it's not finished yet):
http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1581472853/GlitchMan-Peter%20Pan%20%26%20The%20Pirates%20%28U%29-WIP.fm2
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Guess what: I am finally going to TAS Mega Man 3 (and 6)! :D
I figured out why Mega Man 3 is so lag sensitive: it is because MM3 has only one set of NMI lag registers in the 0080-08FF banks instead of two like MM4 does. As a result this makes Mega Man 3 more susceptible to lag.
I also showed off some Rush Jet techniques (not sure if it will be useful) which includes:
-landing on Rush Jet through the edge of a platform and zipping past it
-sliding infinitely on the Rush Jet underneath a ceiling
http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/548801631/GlitchMan-Rockman%203%20-%20Dr%20Wily%20no%20Saigo%21%20%28J%29-RushJettricks.fm2
Also, that Rush plasma shooter weapon switching thing looked really awesome! I tried it out myself and I got some interesting results:
-when you switch to particular weapons the plasma shots from when you had Rush equipped don't hit an enemy until Mega Man is fully teleported in
-switching to Spark Shock causes the plasma shots to turn into Spark Shocks when hitting an enemy (it does no damage to the enemy) and the enemy unfreezes when the Spark Shock passes through it (it still acts as a regular plasma shot).
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finalfighter wrote:
stage07glitch.fm2 is very interesting.
The map number is single-mindedly increased.
It looks like Woodman stage or DelayCurrentBeginScreenChanged of MM2? :)
It seems to be able to do such a revival death even in other stages.
I just thought about this: I might have to collect a lot of extra lives to pull it off for those stages too. That won't be a problem since it's really easy to get extra lives from killing enemies in this game.
Here is the demonstration for the Dark Man Stage 4 glitch incase anybody wants to see what happened in this situation:
http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1668660772/GlitchMan-Mega%20Man%205%20%28U%29-stage0Bglitch.fm2
I also improved the teleportation glitch in Crystal Man's stage:
http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1514879332/GlitchMan-Mega%20Man%205%20%28U%29-stage07glitchimproved.fm2
This time I fell in the spikes on screen 15 (screen #021 of 255) instead of taking the Super Arrow death shortcut.
I looked in the memory viewer and saw what happened: The enemy's walking sub-pixel speed switched to Mega Man's current speed and the y-position of the enemy's rolling head gets transferred to Mega Man's vertical screen number.
I know what really happened: There was a sprite overflow (it can only fit 24 sprites) so the value for the walking/falling speed gets written into the next series of addresses (the x,y coordinates) and vice versa.
Ex: 0330-0347: x-coordinate, 0348-035F: horizontal screen number
If it somehow exceeds the max limit, the data for the on-screen x-coordinate can overflow into the horizontal screen number for Mega Man ($0348). The way the memory addresses are set up makes it so that I should have the vertical position of the overflowing sprite data close enough to the bottom of the screen so that it won't be a long fall. I should also find some nearby spikes to kill myself since he becomes invisible with this glitch and is immune to everything but spikes. I looked in the excess level data of some stages (screens after the "boss room") which I access by making 002A (number of screens for a room) equal FF and 002B (what screen you are on in that room) equal FF to see if there were any opportunities for Mega Man to commit suicide if there aren't any spikes in the stage.
I tested this glitch out and I found out what happened:
The banks $0348 (Mega Man's current screen number which was 03) and $0378 (Mega Man's vertical on screen position B4) switched values. Maybe this might not be a useless suiciding glitch. I can probably use this to get the checkpoint at the boss door and teleport right to the boss.
I tested this in Darkman stage 1 and you will not believe what just happened:
http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1115291529/GlitchMan-Mega%20Man%205%20%28U%29-stage08glitch.fm2
I finally pulled off the glitch in Crystal Man's stage! Look at $0390 and you will see that the screen number keeps increasing to FF until it loops back to 00. It takes a minute but this is just a demonstration run. After I fell back into the normal screen I make Mega Man visible again and kill myself via Super Arrow death trap and he ended up teleporting to the room right before the boss.
http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/793873976/GlitchMan-Mega%20Man%205%20%28U%29-stage07glitch.fm2
Yes, I know. That's exactly what I looked at to help me look at the lag explanation I just posted on here a few days ago. :)
Thanks again for showing me this.
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I have been investigating the stage checkpoints and how they work.
The checkpoints can only happen in order of occurrence. In other words, you have to access the first checkpoint before you can get to the second one. In order to reach a checkpoint, Mega Man's screen coordinate (located at $0348) has to have the same value of the screen where the checkpoint is.
Ex: Bright Man's stage:
Checkpoint 1: screen 0B
Checkpoint 2: screen 19
Maybe I can pull off some sort of checkpoint death trick (kind of like in the Mega Man 2 TAS) by making Mega Man zip off screen somehow. Mega Man can die by falling in spikes or taking damage from an enemy if his health is low enough. If he tries to fall in a pit when he is invisible, he will keep falling and the vertical screen coordinate ($0390) keeps going up until it reaches 80 then he dies (it doesn't work in Ring Man's stage in which case he would not die at all since that's the only stage where you can't die by being stuck in a wall). I did test all of this.
In Mega Man 5 it doesn't matter if you go to a screen greater than the one where the checkpoint is at and it allows you to go past the first checkpoint and straight to the second one.
The vertical screen coordinate ($0390) has no effect on whether or not you reach a checkpoint, only the horizontal one ($0348).
I like to post these discoveries to remember them better and develop newer ways to make this run better.
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Mothrayas wrote:
Did you mean lag manipulation instead of luck manipulation? Otherwise I can't really see the relevance.
I meant both of them. I already knew I could luck manipulate an enemy or boss by shooting or jumping at a certain frame and I think that it can affect the E4-E7 randomness generators.
Sorry if I didn't word it properly.
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I figured out how the RAM addresses 80, 81, 84, and 85 can be helpful in determining luck manipulation. In normal gameplay they all equal 01 but when a lag frame occurs they equal 02, 00, 04, and 00 respectively. Most of the time there won't be a frame of lag when only one set of them doesn't equal 01. I can use this as a form of luck manipulating.
I also noticed that when 83 and 84 equal 02 and 00 and the same values switch to 80 and 81 one frame later, it is a frame of lag. There are a few instances where all four RAM addresses equal the 02, 00, 04, and 00 values there isn't a frame of lag. This can also help me study the lag better and know how to control it better.
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The animation for Rush Coil in this game lasts 36 frames (in MM3 it lasted 45 frames which tells me they must have shortened it for this game). I hope that segment is spliceable. I've tested all kinds of control combinations to try to skip it but nothing worked so far.
Too bad they had to lengthen the teleportation time for this game. Rush can take up to 60 frames to teleport in depending on how close you are to the bottom of the screen.
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Sonikkustar wrote:
Scaringly amazing work GlitchMan! Keep it up!
You seem to have one left over ballon left though. Why not use it?
I would have used it to jump into the center after I killed Bright Man (I didn't want to go through all the trouble of having to fight Bright Man just for this one demonstration so I calculated it instead). When the explosion took place I immediately switch (for reduced lag) to the Balloon use it to jump into the center of the room and get the weapon energy particles early (this glitch is shown in Dive Man's stage; I didn't know it could be done in any other stage at the time I made the published run).
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I have improved Bright Man's stage (not part of the run itself):
http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/895284958/GlitchMan-Mega%20Man%204%20%28U%29-stage00improvement.fm2
I started recording from where I left off on my published run of this game. I saved 168 frames for the stage itself. I can save 13 frames off the boss fights (better connected hits), 38 frames off jumping in the middle of the boss room to acquire the weapon early, and 25 frames off centering Bright Man properly when I kill him. All that was calculated from my published run and we get a grand total of 244 frames saved (4 seconds + 4 frames). I'm aiming for an average of 4 seconds a stage so that's a really good start.
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Wow! What a coincidence! I was just now looking at this topic when it was in the workbench and next thing you know this gets published! :D
Congratulations! It deserved to be published because of all the work put into it!
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Glitcher wrote:
That's strange. The first time I played this movie, everything ran just fine. But now whenever I watch it, it desyncs at Wily's Castle 1 (Megsy never moves when he teleports in). I can't remember changing any settings that would cause this and I'm using the latest FCEUX. Can anyone explain why this is happening?
Do you have it on New PPU? If so, then you have to switch to Old PPU.
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AnS wrote:
Wow, this trick is certainly hi-class achievement. And it's so rare occurrence, it's amazing someone stumbled upon such ingame condition.
Now I wonder if same technique could be used in another lag-heavy game. Because many NES games use similar bankswitching routine and bank changing/restoring in NMI, so it's only a matter of extreme coincidence to get NMI between two instructions (bank switching and variable storing). And for "coincidence" we have bots and pure luck...
Contra Force is a really lag-heavy game! Maybe someone could try it on that one!
I also noticed that the new Rockman TAS is exactly as long as my TAS of Contra Force (12:23)! :)
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Sonikkustar wrote:
So hows progress on this?
Other than in-stage demonstration runs I haven't really done much with the actual run itself (I'm still at the end of stage 1). I will have more time to work on this over the winter break.
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ALAKTORN wrote:
Mothrayas wrote:
GlitchMan, I'm sure there are more than enough people interested in Mega Man TASing and watching your works. No need to delete your posts.
yeah, most people don't post, but they watch and read
Yeah, that's true. It's just been so quiet around the Mega Man TASing topics lately. Usually I would see some responses. I probably should have waited longer or just not worried about it and keep TASing. Thanks for letting me know about this.
I did test the velocity with Mega Man being stuck inside a wall. I used hex editor to freeze the address for walking speed to zero and whenever Mega Man walks left he zips to the right. He can't walk towards the right and zip left. Same for the falling velocity address. When he is stuck inside a wall and I freeze the falling velocity at zero he zips downward.
This would help explain a little better how the zipping mechanism works in the NES Mega Man series.
I also tested Mega Man's recovery phase after taking damage by freezing it at different values (timer located at 003C) and found out that the frames he is invisible is when there's less lag.
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Baxter wrote:
Hey Glitchman, why did you delete your post with that new way to complete that moving platform room in the dustman stage?
It looked really awesome! Would be nice if you would put it up again, in case people want to see :)