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ALAKTORN wrote:
...That sounds like a really cool glitch though. Sure it might get boring if it’s always used, but at least using it once could make it interesting and faster at the same time.
If I wanted to use the glitch at all, I would have used it. I don't think randomly having soft music for 1 stage is any more or less interesting than having it for the whole game. I think it would just be strange.
As for the fact that it saves time, this is no different to me than playing on a version with less text or faster load times to achieve an arbitrarily lower completion time. These seconds have no effect on the quality of the gameplay, and are even saved to the detriment of the viewer's experience. I happen to think that the soundtrack of Mega Man X is one of the most memorable aspects of the game(which I'm sure is true most other fans as well), and that playing it at anything other than full volume would be a waste.
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This is actually a strategy I use in RTAs so that the eyes will die even if they remain stationary. Unfortunately it's slower than hadoukening each eye individually at ground level, so it was not used in the TAS.
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As far as I know, this is the only capsule where this is possible. The only other glitch similar to this that I know of (having control of X while advancing text) is the Vile text skip in Sigma 1.
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Here's a pretty fast example of the triple sled zip skip I just made. This ended up being 28 frames slower than the skip in the v2 run up to the barrier leading out of Kuwanger's room being destroyed. So this does not count the additional frames the strat loses to extra health refilling (8 frames, but this only applies to 100%) and the frames lost to having to jump in order to initiate the Bospider fight (which applies to both categories).
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Yeah, Lua script.
So after using a different strat to eradicate the room before Bospider, create an additional dust sprite, and delay my movement by a handful of frames, I was able to make it to the nearest straight-down pattern in the sequence in order to net a 2 frame save, lol.
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FractalFusion can explain this much better than I can, but basically he found which pattern Bospider will give on each of the game's rng values, mapped out the game's ~43,000 value long sequence, and found out the number of frames it takes to kill Bospider given each pattern.
The rng sequence advances one frame at a time, and will skip a value on each frame that you kill an enemy as well as each frame you create a dust sprite from sliding down a wall.
Prior to phantom grabbing the door in this stage, I was very limited in which enemies I could kill/ignore so that I could get an extra life to do the platform grab at the beginning of the stage(these are extremely rare and I couldn't use life energy since I was weakening myself for the vile encounter), a good vile pattern, and a viable drop for the door grab. I had to go back and redo the majority of the stage several times to get everything to fall into place since my rng around the time of the door grab was particularly bad(there wasn't another life energy for miles before/after the frame I got this one on).
So from this point onward, given the frame that I was on in the rng sequence, killing as many enemies as possible and creating the max number of wall slide dust sprites during downtime just happened to coincide with getting me to the fastest Bospider pattern anywhere within close proximity. Something like 20-30 frames later was the nearest optimal pattern, but considering I had already killed everything/created max dust sprites, my only manipulation option left would have been to delay entering Bospider's door which would have resulted in a net time loss since the pattern was so far away.
It might be possible to gain a net time save of a small number of frames from utilizing the nearest optimal pattern if I kill more helmet heads to the detriment of my movement in the final section, but this is very questionable. Not only does firing extra shots in this section cause lag, the helmet heads don't take damage until you turn your back to them, you must also item avoid drops(for lag reduction and especially so you don't refill ammo), and you have to use c-sting because of the initial invulnerability of the enemies.
And just to give people an idea of how rare optimal Bospider patterns are, there hasn't been a published mmx tas with less than 3 crossovers on the initial descent since at least before FractalFusion's any% tas from 2006 (I haven't watched any of the obsoleted any% TASes, but I doubt they got the optimal pattern either). Given the way rng manipulation in mmx works, sometimes you have to just take what is given to you.
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The nearest straight-down Bospider pattern was something like 20 frames away when I got there in the run. Considering how I had already killed every possible enemy after Vile and created the max number of dust sprites during down time, it would've been impossible to get it without waiting around for an amount of time larger than what the pattern would have saved.
Not much is known about the skip at this point, but this seems to be the fastest method thus far. The basic concept is to grab the door, respawn the turret, spawn Kuwanger, take damage to regain control of X, grab the lower ladder to release the camera lock, then after entering Kuwanger's room then game performs a check to see that 1: you have control of X, and 2: Kuwanger is nowhere in sight and destroys the exit gate.
I did something on accident in my stream yesterday where I scrolled the screen a very small amount after grabbing the door which FractalFusion thought might be able to yield a quicker skip, so maybe a faster method will arise from that.
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Here's Sigma 1 (and a little bit of Sigma 2). This will probably be the last WIP before the final submission since there isn't anything too game-breaking in the remainder of the run. v2 is currently 32s ahead of the published run.
I was able to save 63 frames with the Kuwanger skip. I think I may hold off on getting further in the TAS for a bit in case FractalFusion or Parrot14green find another way to optimize the skip even further.
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parrot14gree wrote:
Hetfield90 wrote:
go down so far that I can't spawn Kuwanger before he despawns left of the screen.
This sentence I don't understand what do you meaning.
I meant that if I wanted to spawn the flying enemy quickly, I would have to spawn him so low that he would fly off screen before I could spawn Kuwanger and take damage from him. But after seeing your new smv it looks like using the red turret instead of the flying enemy will be fastest anyway.
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Here's the WIP of everything up to obtaining the hadouken. 1573 frames(26.2s) had been saved over the published run up to that point, and an additional 270 frames(4.5s) were saved from the beginning of Sigma 1 up to and including the Vile encounter.
@Parrot14green
In your 5th smv, how do you manage to fall through the floor with the ladder during the boss hp fill sequence? Also for the strat in your 6th smv, is there a way to quickly spawn the flying enemy to make this strat viable? It seems like I either have to wait a long time for him to spawn, or go down so far that I can't spawn Kuwanger before he despawns left of the screen.
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@Parrot14green
Oh I see. I hope this can still save time because it looks really interesting. I'm almost there in the run (currently on octopus) so I'll start working on optimizing it soon.
@Alaktorn
You can make the stage permanently bright by disabling transparency effects in some emulators, but I'm not sure if Bizhawk has this feature so I just TASed in the dark. There was really only one spot in the stage where this was problematic though (the first ice sled zip after the e-tank grab).
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Link to video60fps Version
Here's progress up to and including Spark Mandrill. 1384f(~23s) ahead of the published run.
@Parrot14green
I watched your movies on the Kuwanger skip and was messing around with it a little bit myself, but didnt spend too much time on it.
Judging by your first 3 movies, it seems like the only requirements to get the skip are to first phantom grab the door, then release the camera lock either by grabbing the ladder at the bottom of the climb or touching the right side of the left door leading to Kuwanger's room (by zipping inbetween them with a sled and enemy damage).
If that is the case, do you think something like this would be a possible way to get the skip? If so, I think this skip could save a lot of time, and I think the Penguin, Octopus, and Mammoth refights could be potentially skipped as well.
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ALAKTORN wrote:
Question: is double dashing not slower? I thought you needed to jump in order to not slow down at the end of a dash.
Any time you input a dash or a jump from dash speed, X's horizontal movement is halted for 1 frame. So it generally doesn't matter which one you do, as long as you minimize the number of total dash/jump inputs for any given segment.
ALAKTORN wrote:
Another thing, I don’t understand the strategy for boss fights. Why do you switch around charged shots and non-charged? I thought normal dash-shots would be the fastest.
The fastest way to defeat a lot of bosses in X1-3 is to alternate between charged and uncharged shots while using the travel time of uncharged shots to gain a head start on the charge time of the succeeding charged shot. This is because you can't start a charge while another charged shot is on screen, but you can while an uncharged shot is.
So the idea is to fire charged shots from point blank range so they hit the boss as quickly as possible after you become fully charged, then create as much distance as possible between you and the boss and fire the uncharged shot so that it connects when the boss's immunity frames expire. The more distance you can get, the earlier you can fire the shot and start your next charge.
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Link to video
Here is the v2 WIP so far if anyone is interested. It is 1136f (~19s) faster than the published run up to and including Eagle's stage. There is also a much higher quality/60fps video on my twitch.
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"EmuHawk has thrown a fatal exception and is about to close. A movie has been detected. Would you like to try to save? (Note: Depending on what caused this error, this may or may succeed)"
This is happening nearly every time I make a savestate. Does anyone know of a way to fix this?
This is happening nearly every time I make a savestate. Does anyone know of a way to fix this?