I've been doing some research on long term planning of a Terranigma TAS and I wanted to share some of my findings:
RedArmor Consideration
The RedArmor increases STR by 13 which is roughly equivalent to 2.5 additional levelups. As a benchmark I will consider 2 scenarios for fighting the final boss:
- At level 28 with HeroPike and RedArmor, average damage done is 20.
- At level 30 with HeroPike but without RedArmor, average damage done is 15.
Now let's have a look time investments needed for both scenarios:
RedArmor Time Investment needed
Gem Collecting:
Location Source #Gems #Frames Speed
-------------------------------------------
Norfest Chest 389 142 137.0
Mush Chest 500 204 122.5
C. Indonesia Chest 378 150 126.0
NW. Africa Chests 1706 854 99.9
Greenland Cave Chest 961 672 71.5
S. Indonesia Chest 1403 1331 52.7
Louran Grave 500 632 39.6
Deserted Ruins Chest 378 485 39.0
Sylvain Chest 651 843 38.6
Total 6867 Gems in 5313 Frames
Buying & Equipping RedArmor: 1310 Frames
Total time investment: 132s, 23f
Grinding 2 Additional Levels:
Best grinding spot: Neotokio sewers @ 61.9 exp/second
Total experience needed: 10565
Level up text duration: 2x 9s
Total time investment: 188s, 34f
Conclusion:
Getting the RedArmor requires a smaller time investment than grinding 2 additional levels and yields superior damage output. Therefore, getting the RedArmor is the superior option.
EnbuPike Consideration
The EnbuPike can used during 2 bossfights:
- Hitoderon in Great Lake Cavern (GLC)
- GuardRobot in Beruga's Lab
To be able to determine the benefit of using the EnbuPike against these bosses, the estimated number of hits per time unit against these bosses is needed. I timed these based on the SDA speedrun:
Hitoderon: 3x 222 Life, 18 Sliders in 44 Seconds
GuardRobot: 1x 650 Life, 16 Slicers in 18 Seconds
The GuardRobot actually has 3 legs with 650 Life each, but I assumed each slicer can hit all 3.
EnbuPike Time Investment needed
#Frames
Ressurecting Mu: 2337
Collecting before GLC: 4323
Collecting after GLC: 2419
Total (before GLC): 133 Seconds
Total (after GLC): 95 Seconds
The final information needed to get an accurate estimate of the benefits of using the EnbuPike is the grinding speed before and after both bosses. The optimal grinding spot before the bosses is the small room with 3 fishes in Great Lake Cavern, and after the bosses again the Neotokio Sewers:
GLC Grinding: 36.2 exp/second
Sewer Grinding: 61.9 exp/second
I also assume that 1 level is gained in between both bosses by killing monsters on the way through Beruga's Lab.
Now let's define semi-realistic boundary conditions for the TAS:
Start: Level 20 in Great Lake Caverns
End: Level 26 in Neotokio Sewers
And a few possible scenarios:
Scenario #1: NeoFang against both bosses
Scenario #2: NeoFang against Hitoderon, EnbuPike against GuardRobot
Scenario #3: EnbuPike against both bosses
I calculated the optimal grinding strategy for all scenarios and found the following strategies:
Scenario #1:Grind in GLC to level 24 360s
Fight Hitoderon (Lvl 24, 66 Dmg) 25s
Fight GuardRobot (Lvl 25, 25 Dmg) 29s
Grind in Sewers to level 26 68s +
------
Total: 482s
Scenario #2Grind in GLC to level 23 260s
Fight Hitoderon (Lvl 23, 34 Dmg) 48s
Acquire EnbuPike 95s
Fight GuardRobot (Lvl 24, 89 Dmg) 8s
Grind in Sewers to level 26 131s +
------
Total: 542s
Scenario #3Acquire EnbuPike 133s
Fight Hitoderon (Lvl 20, 69 Dmg) 24s
Fight GuardRobot (Lvl 21, 20 Dmg) 35s
Grind in Sewers to level 26 292s +
------
Total: 484s
Conclusion:
Skipping the EnbuPike (Scenario #1) is estimated to be only 2 seconds faster than using it against both bosses (Scenario #3). However, I believe in practice the difference will be larger in favor of skipping the EnbuPike due to the following reasons:
- Equipping the EnbuPike was not taken into account and takes a few additional seconds
- Collecting the EnbuPike interferes with the Gem (and possibly STR potion) collecting, causing another delay
- The assumed grinding speed in Neotokio is a best-case estimate, and in practice can be as low as 49.5 exp/second. A smaller difference in grinding speed favors early grinding which is the case when skipping the EnbuPike (Scenario #1)
Therefore I believe skipping the EnbuPike entirely and using the NeoFang is the superior option. The SDA speedrun collects the 3PartRod instead, but doing this takes almost as long (85 seconds) getting the EnbuPike (95 seconds) and yields inferior damage. Using the GeoStaff is not worth it either, since both bosses have a 75% Earth resistance.
If someone wants to challenge the conclusions drawn above, I would be happy to defend them. It's also possible I made some calculation errors along the way: let me know if you find any!
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As you can see, it approaches 0.5 as the number of estimations grows. It shows similar results for window sizes larger than 3.