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I've done absolutely nothing since my last post, except for occasionally thinking to myself. The Rope is clearly the best way to defeat Starman Junior, but I still haven't decided the best way to kill The Fish. Mary's castle has a Rope if I want to take the safe route, or a Boomerang if I want to try pure offense (it's impossible to get both). There also don't seem to be many hacking tools available for this game (and I've been lazy recently), so I don't know of he's vulnerable to Hypnosis, which would also be an option if it works. Regardless of which I choose, I'd also have to decide how many Grouchos will give me exp before the fight.
After that, the rest of the run should be easy enough. The dog guarding Duncan's factory is easy enough. For leveling up to 25 (needed to fight the Dragon), Red Snakes have been suggested, but you would actually need to be able to kill them. Some of Loid's items can help with that, but then he'd have to gain exp, and Ninten is the only one who needs it. My plan was to power level with EVE instead. Against the Dragon, throwing a Super Bomb would require reviving Loid and make him reach level 6, but I can't think of any faster strategies. All that's left after that is Giegue, whom I plan to solo with Ninten. He can learn PSI Shield at level 13, so the fight should easy enough to win. Having more characters would probably not make the fight faster, and may even make it slower.
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Magish wrote:
Earthbound, teleport alpha
Ness's speed increases at a constant rate, and the teleport becomes successful as soon as he reaches 10 pixels/frame. However, he continues to move forward offscreen, eventually reaching speeds over 25 pixels/frame before the screen fades out entirely and the game stops tracking his location.
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You can find savestates at various points of the run on Halamantariel's site, linked in the submission text. To use one, rename it to have the same name as your ROM, with extension anywhere from .000 (slot 1) to .009 (slot 10). Here's a direct link to the last two bosses.
41 - Comet (Final Bosses)
I think you'll find that, while you can indeed fire more quickly, the bosses' invincibility periods after being hit will prevent you from damaging them more in each cycle.
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After the prophet kicks him out of 12000 BC, he's going to do Fiona's sidequest in order to purchase Vigil Helms. After that, he's going directly to Lavos without getting Epoch. Waiting to get Epoch and then making it fly (in order to crash into Lavos) would take longer than the necessary leveling up. For the same reason, he can't even reach Son of Sun to steal anything.
As for critical hits, it seems (from what I've heard) that the RNG is only used when needed, and unmanipulable except by changing the number of times it's used.
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This has already been said by everyone else, but congratulations on the new run. I voted yes, of course.
Would this be a bad time to point out that the left side of 9-3 can be improved by 32 frames?
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Since you asked, I'll explain the codes, but it's impossible to do so without getting into assembly code. This is the relevant part of the unmodified ROM:
Based on what happens when this is modified, I would assume that the game checks to see if a certain tile is a brick you can carry. If so, it continues on to B5DF, and otherwise it branches to B604. Both Game Genie codes work by ensuring that the game never branches to B604 from this point. The code you mentioned uses the conveniently placed 03 to convert the comparison to a branch which gets you to the right place.
B5D8: A9 32 LDA #$32
B5DA: 10 03 BPL $B5DF (this always branches, because 0x32 is positive)
B5DC: 06 D0 25 (these bytes are skipped over)
The usual way to bypass a conditional (and what I did in the other code I mentioned) is to make the branch null:
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The code converted to 8 letters is AOSUZSSI. However, that code seems to be a slightly unusual way to accomplish that, especially when compared to something like AESUTIIZ.
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Dwedit: Yes, I'm sure about this. Basically, the game reloads the critical hit rate from a backup that was never made (and that area of RAM was zeroed before the battle). I have a savestate on the moon and Kain can still critical, so I don't know what happened in the Edge solo fight. As for FuSoYa and Golbez, anyone not in those positions will lose the ability to critical.
Note that dark knight Cecil and paladin Cecil are completely unrelated characters, and thus paladin Cecil can critical until the Tellah vs. Golbez fight. Rydia is only one character though.
Phil: That's exactly what I'm saying. If you want proof, here are some memory addresses.
202D: critical hit rate, middle position
20AD: critical hit rate, top position
212D: critical hit rate, bottom position
21AD: critical hit rate, second position from top
222D: critical hit rate, second position from bottom
26AD: critical hit rate, character/enemy currently attacking
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At the risk of boring everyone else reading this thread, the carry flag can be set or clear when that routine is called. This happens in the previous routine called, and the result depends on CFCB. If CFCB is anything other than 0 or 1 (usually 0xFF), the carry flag will be set, and the sum of FFD3 and FFD4 has a chance to increase. If CFCB is 1, the carry flag will be clear, and the sum of FFD3 and FFD4 has a chance to decrease. I haven't looked at the case when CFCB is 0, but it only lasts 1 frame anyway.
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That explains it. I had noticed that the code that changes FFD3 and FFD4 doesn't change their sum by much during each frame, so I figured the sum was used to determine which Pokemon to encounter. Now it's clear that this dependence is solely due to the constraint on FFD3 when you get into an encounter. I posted the code here for convenience. FF04 seemed to be a hardware register that was used as a source of entropy.
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The correct address to look at is FFD4, and I think FFD3 may be somewhat related to it too. This is mostly just based on what I remember from my brief look at this after you posted your earlier analysis. I know Z80 assembly language (and the GB isn't much different), so I may briefly look into it later if I get bored.
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I recently learned (thanks to poik007's videos) that you can use a Rope on Starman Junior, and thus make him unable to move. This should be faster than trying to manipulate a miss every round or letting him use PK Beam. Hopefully, this would also prevent him from selecting an action, in which case SMAAAASH manipulation would be much easier.
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The run looks good technically, but I doubt it would be very entertaining.
Also, have you considered picking up a weapon to let Maxim suicide in one hit? It may or may not be faster than letting Maxim die in 3 attacks. Of course, you could always manipulate two high-damage critical hits instead, which would likely be faster than either of the other options.
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Just some random questions:
What are the goals of this run?
How do you plan to get the 10th Iris treasure?
Why did you get Providence? You'll get it automatically when you fight the boss anyway.
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fetofs wrote:
BTW, I didn't quite get what goroh meant by "waking" (on second thinking, I don't understand anything :P), however this does mean there are bad things on the first stage (which would mean a complete redoing of the thing. argh.)
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Indeed, walking in the interior of Baron Castle does seem to affect the step counter (7E0686) just as if it was a place you could get into a battle. I haven't played this game on an emulator, so I don't have any saves to check any other locations.
EDIT: Deign gave me a savestate near the end of the game. It works anywhere with that tileset (I checked Baron, Damcyan, Fabul, Toroia, Eblan, Castle of Dwarves, Serpent Road, and Tower of Wishes). It doesn't apply to doorways, stairs, or red carpets, nor does it apply to the exterior (open air) parts of the castles.
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samurai goroh wrote:
Ok, I watched the run & observed some mistakes.
In the 1st map, you should change the display settings ASAP, as the speed of waking increases...(this goes for Blue Moon too). On day 3, do you have to move the 3rd infantry at all? I mean, is it the same to move & attack or is it faster to just attack? Because you would only open the infantry's menu once instead of twice...
Somehow I never noticed the connection. I'm not sure why I moved the third infantry either. Also, you probably already noticed your typo, but the enemy is Black Hole.
On map 2, in the 1st day, do you really need to load the infantry on the APC & can't you move a little away the Artillery, so it won't refill the Artillery...
The infantry really needs to be loaded on the APC, or else he can't reach the enemy HQ until day 5. You're right about the APC supplying the artillery. The movement to do that is probably a few frames faster anyway.
Map 3, did you tried to look for a HQ capture? You could use the Copters as shields while the infantry captures... Or is it slower? (I guess is slower, but I wanted to ask :P)
An earlier WIP had a victory by HQ capture. Routing the enemy turned out to be faster.
Map 4 seems ok, apart from the Mech capturing, is is the same as just not capturing? I don't remember if it was in this map or not, but you seem to press L to switch many times, can't you combine L with the directional arrows?
Capture is the first option in the menu, so it's either faster or the same speed. (I can't remember offhand, since it's been too long.) As for combining L with the directional arrows, remember that L works differently in this game than in Fire Emblem. Using L is almost always faster if you want to move multiple units.
In map 5, if you're going for a HQ capture, can't you sacrifice the Battleship? I mean, don't block the path of the submarine & let him hit the ship. I think you're 6,000 G damage short if I'm not mistaken...
I agree.
BTW, what is the movie aiming for? (apart of beating the game ASAP) Are you planning on getting a perfect S rank too, or days, other?
I'm not sure, but it probably involves playing every mission and getting a 300-point S rank.
Here are some memory address that might help you out:
03004080,1u,Days
020232E0,4u,Power Meter 1p
0202331C,4u,Power Meter 2p
02023358,4u,Power Meter 3p
02023394,4u,Power Meter 4p
020232C0,4u,Money 1p
020232FC,4u,Money 2p
02023338,4u,Money 3p
02023374,4u,Money 4p
03003FCD,1u,FoW flag
Some of these should be useful. I think I also posted the RNG state somewhere in this thread, which may or may not be useful. I also remember watching unit HP values at some points.
PS: I think you already know, but is good to be sure. Do you do know how does the Power Meter fills or not?
If I remember correctly, it's equal to the monetary amount of damage dealt to you by opponents in combat plus half the monetary amount of damage you dealt to opponents in combat. One star starts at some value (7000 G? It's been far too long to remember), and the value needed for a star increases every time you use a power.
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I haven't played this in a long time, so I'm out of practice, but I should still be able to help with this. On turn 1, you can let the sub attack your battleship and the rockets attack your lander, which might get you closer to Sami's SCO power.
Also, did you record any of the first 4 (EDIT: I said 5 earlier because I forgot we hadn't done Andy's Time yet) missions, or were those all redone by me and completely unchanged after that?
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Some information about the RNG was posted in pages 12 and 13 of this thread. It appears to be an additive lagged Fibonacci generator, with values in 03f1-03ff and an index (to avoid shifting the contents of memory) at 03f0.