Posts for TheHepper

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MUGG, I read this thread this morning and thought about it a lot today. It really resonated with some things I've been going through, so I hope you don't mind if I share my thoughts as well. I went through something similar myself a few years ago. I was a person that would do anything for my friends and family, and then I realized I was always reaching out to them, and they would do things without telling me or inviting me along. Eventually I felt they didn't care for me, so I focused really hard on work for a few years, and neglected everything else in my life (so I completely understand having no clean space in the house to do push ups!). Things came to a head earlier this year when I learned my teams didn't like working with me, and a manager who I had given the hardest 2 years of my life dropped me from the team without speaking a word to me about it. I felt at that time that I'd lost everything, and was extremely depressed. I talked with some people about it, and the recommendation was similar to what people here have said: focus on building up the neglected parts of my life. I've since started running (and lost 35 lbs), started playing an instrument (Irish tin whistle), and started playing video games again (currently have a bad Fallout 3 addiction). I even cleaned up my place some, although I have a ways to go still. Since then my relationships with others have improved. See, in the past I didn't really do that much, I would spend a weekend working on a TAS, or reading stuff on Reddit. And that's fine, but when people asked me what I did during the weekend, I didn't think they'd be interested so I'd say "not much, how about you?". Now, I can talk about where I ran, what video game I played, etc. I think from reading your posts you may be similar in this regard, and you may not have a lot to share with others about what you're doing. My theory is that my friends and family felt I didn't trust them because I didn't share things with them (even if I really did do nothing all weekend and was fine with it). But if you trust someone and share things with them, then you can create a better relationship that moves away from acquaintance/familiarity and towards trust. Since I share what I'm doing with coworkers now, we have stronger relationships and things are better at work. I connected with an old friend a while back, and started to rebuild that relationship. I still have a lot to work on, but I have a lot more hope for the future. So with that said, I'm not sure if this friend of yours meant what they said maliciously. I wasn't there, but in my mind it's possible she was frustrated that she felt you two were only acquaintances. Have you told her about TASing and why you enjoy it? Does she know about things you like to do on the computer? Does she know where you like to walk? Maybe you didn't trust her enough to share these things, or maybe you told her these things and she didn't express any interest (in which case I think you're better off without her). There's something called the Familiarity-Comfort-Trust model, which as I understand states that relationships fall on a continuum between familiarity and trust. You can be comfortable with someone and have a great time, but if you don't trust each other the relationship is not as strong as it could be. Maybe she wanted a better relationship and didn't feel things were progressing. But I don't know, I'm only suggesting a theory that might make sense to you. She may not be a terrible person, after all you liked her well enough. But people can be very bad at expressing themselves, so this seems like a possible interpretation given what little I know and my own experiences. My recommendation is to prioritize the people with whom you have a trusting relationship. Relationships will come and go, but the people who trust you will continue sharing things with you if you maintain the relationship, and you can always call them and ask how the things they shared with you are going. They should feel good that you remembered and cared about them, and they should want to reciprocate and ask about you. These relationships are hard to create, but easier to maintain for long periods of time. Also, I think it's great that you want to live for others. That's admirable in my mind. Go for it, and maybe give me some tips about it because I'd like to live that way too. But I think you do need to find other interests, and if not for yourself, then for the people you care about. Grow as a person, be someone they can learn from and share your experiences with so they can grow too. Complete the comic project and share the experience with others. And to your comment from before about people not asking if they can help you, I think it's human nature to want to be with people who you can learn from, and we have limited time so very rarely do we reach out to people we don't have a relationship with. Maybe try to be someone that others can depend on, and don't worry if people you don't have a trusting relationship with reject you. If you trust someone, talk with them honestly about it and try to learn from it. Maybe you can try talking to this girl and clear up some of the confusion? If you don't feel you can, maybe the relationship wasn't as good as you thought. Lastly, cleaning for an hour may be too much. Start really small, maybe clean a coffee table, or one dresser, or clean up a little trash, then reinforce in your mind the positive things - how much better it looks, how easy it was to clean, how good you feel. When I started running, I could only run for 100 yards, but I reinforced how good the wind felt on my face, and celebrated when I ran just a little farther than before. Now I can run 6 miles, and I'll try for 9 this weekend. Somehow with little steps I became a runner, and maybe next year I'll try for a marathon. Sorry for the long post, brevity is not my strong suit. TLDR: If nothing else understand that others have been where you are, and time will make things better. Don't give up on creating relationships with others, and if they don't appreciate you then think about the future people you'll meet that will. Try to grow with little steps, and things will get better. These are just my thoughts, thanks for reading.
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Hi yorky97 I had also tried a run of this game, but I used the Japanese version Godzilla-kun since Godzilla moved faster and also had an additional special weapon. I thought that would improve the entertainment value. Below is the first WIP I had attempted. http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/582823596/Godzilla-kun%20%28Japan%29.vbm Then I learned some tricks and started a second version. 1) I found it is faster to punch boulders twice in succession when moving rather than hitting them once at a time. 2) I also used Godzilla's special attack in stage 2 to save time. 3) The run ends where I tried to luck manipulate the Rodan to cause more damage, which would save time since health counts down at the end of each level. However, your run is superior to mine in stage 4 in how you stacked those boulders. I did not get very far, but please feel free to use my updated WIP below for comparison. http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/39480204/Godzilla-kun%20%28Japan%29%20v5.vbm Good luck!
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Thought I would add to the list here. For fantasy, I enjoy anything by Brandon Sanderson. Might start with the Mistborn series. For sci-fi, I liked John Scalzi's Old Man's War, and anything by Phillip K Dick. Probably my favorite in sci-fi are Isaac Asimov's robot stories. I also enjoy Napoleanic War historical fiction. If you like ships, I recommend C.S. Forrester's Hornblower series, and Dudley Pope's Ramage series. If you like the army, I recommend Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe series. Cornwell also wrote the Warlord Trilogy, which tells the tale of King Arthur as though it actually occurred, although it can be somewhat dry. I am also reading Jack Whyte's Camulod chronicles, which is also about the Arthurian legend, but tells the story from a somewhat different timeline. It starts one or two generations before Arthur's birth, and is mainly from the perspective of a (former) Roman soldier. It tells a story that is very different from most Arthurian books, but has elements that could have morphed into the legend we know today. Thinking about Arthur, another fantasy series I really enjoyed was Guy Gavriel Kay's Fionavar Tapestry, which is somewhat about King Arthur, but also similar to Narnia where the characters are pulled into another world (except the main characters are college-aged IIRC). If you can tolerate adolescent fantasy (i.e., Harry Potter), the Nicholas Flamel series by Michael Scott was a good read. Agatha Christie was mentioned, and anything with the Poirot character is a great read. For the classics, two of my favorites are The Brother's Karamazov (did you like it Dromiceius?) as well as, The Picture of Dorian Gray. Hmm someone mentioned manga. I would recommend Planetes and Pluto to sci-fi fans. Bokurano was good too. I don't know about any good fantasy manga (does Berserk count?). Jojo's Bizarre Adventure is a guilty favorite. Sorry for the long post, I started thinking "nobody mentioned Brandon Sanderson" and it turned into this. Well, I hope there's a recommendation in here for someone.
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I liked the run, the improvements were very noticeable and fun to watch. Great job! Yes vote.
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I downloaded the new build, and I think the rerecord issue is fixed. That is, rewinding and resuming a section of the movie recorded under v14 correctly added 1 rerecord. However, I gained around 2K rerecords after downloading v14 and resuming from a section recorded under v13. Below is my current movie file and the updated 45e1f file if you are interested. http://www.mediafire.com/?rrli7qmi8y4sokz http://www.mediafire.com/?nk4ogjc96h6wiwl Is there a way to update the movie file with the correct rerecord count? If possible, I think this would be preferable to explaining in the submission text why the movie file has 79K additional rerecords. Also, while I like the new memory watch features, if you have more than 12 watches on one list, it starts to push down the "Other status:" rows. (i.e., with 14 watches you cannot see the SPD% row). Lastly I noticed the new build runs a bit faster. I see speeds in the 130-140% range when turboing now, so that's a nice improvement. EDIT: Oh god, I screwed something up bad. The last 5 minutes of my run are worthless now, so an updated rerecord count is pointless.
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Ilari, here is the file you were asking about. I used a .zip compression since I only have winzip on this machine, but I can download a program with .7z if needed. http://www.mediafire.com/?ie7i53z8zbvw884 I should also mention that rewinding the video and starting from an earlier spot (i.e., because a previous route wasn't working) tends to add around 400 rerecords. Not sure if it's due to the same issue or not, but it sounds like your [1] described. Sorry if these problems are unique to Shadowrun, I'm not trying to be difficult.
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Thanks for v13 Ilari, the new build runs great. However, for some reason my rerecords went way up. I think they should be 13K, instead of 93K. See the file below. Is there an easy way to edit this in the file, or should I just remember that overage when I submit? http://www.mediafire.com/?y7nv8yyblvg79hi
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Thanks for looking into it, Ilari. Essentially, no matter how I kill the second guy, it desyncs on playback. Quite frustrating.
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Could someone please watch this run and let me know if it desyncs? I've gotten mixed results. It will either desync on the second arena guy, or it will sync and kill the third. http://www.mediafire.com/?lbbb04719qr7v4f If it syncs, it is 1,469 frames (approx 25 seconds) faster than my other run at this point in the game.
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Looks good to me, yes vote. Way to persevere McBobX.
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Haha no worries. I should apologize for waiting to try it out. It is still a very useful script for proofing my inputs, and I can run a separate instance in lsnes and follow that input if I made changes earlier in the movie. So thanks for that!
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It's possible klmz is using a mobile device to view the page. I travel a lot and use an ipad to browse, and sometimes the screenshots of each video get out of line, so you see a Megaman movie but the submission is for Metroid, or some such thing. I've never had that problem on a PC.
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SonOfDog - I made some route changes which got my deficit after applying negotiation down to $350, but I also discovered a way to save time on Vladimir. While I would much rather have a run that uses my exact amount of Karma and Nuyen, I now show just getting the Negotiation skill as 169 frames slower than staking Vlad. If it didn't take 200 frames to spend 5 points of karma it would definitely be faster, even after making up the deficit. FYI, the new route is skipping grenades (I found a better way to glitch the King), grabbing Hamfist, boosting charisma to level 4 (and no other skill upgrades), only killing the gang leader in Rust Stilettos, taking out Drake Tower with only Hamfist and Kitsune, and finishing the game with Kitsune and Steelflight. At the end of the game I should have $4,050 extra, but I save quite a few frames along the way. Also the jury is still out on Orifice, not sure if he would be worth the time to pick up plus the extra skill point, but will test that later.
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Hey FatRatKnight, could you please help me understand this script? I am very interested in being able to make modifications to the input, as well as, identifying lag frames. I've read through the script a few times and just couldn't understand how to do those things. Also, is there any way to disable the re-mapping of the keys? I understand that's a good feature to help people get started with lsnes, but I already have them mapped. Not a big deal, just curious.
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I ran two complete testruns. I did not use frame advance for either one and I kept autofire on so they're both sloppy, but I did play in 2 player mode and this is what I learned: 1) You can take route ABDFHKL and still get the best ending. Stage B is 5 frames shorter for some reason, plus you save time on the level select screen so I will take this route in the final run. 2) It may not be possible for both ships to have piercing weapons on the "Best Ending" route. In the test run I wind up being 1 weapon upgrade short; however, some levels have random upgrades, and I have found 2 weapon upgrades so far that were not listed in the guide I'm using, so I may be able to find another. 3) Taking the Best Ending route is around 25 seconds longer in these testruns. Most of this is due to a tougher boss fight, with some caused by having weaker weapons. I think I can improve the time related to weapons by focusing more upgrades on one ship and timing the other ship's attacks so there's less gap in between shots. But there's probably around 15 seconds that are unavoidable. With that said, I'm curious to know whether anyone thinks the best ending route is worth the additional time. The first file below is the best ending route, and the second file should start at a different stage for the second to last level (everything before this is the same). http://www.mediafire.com/?injx5bt8wiq755r http://www.mediafire.com/?a66dz4kb8gpyzwb Also the levels are fairly sparse for most of the game, so I need to get creative to keep the run entertaining. I have a few ideas but I would be interested to hear any others.
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Agreed. Actually it does not matter how many upgrades you get, each weapon only does 1 damage per hit. But one shot of a piercing weapon can hit a boss multiple times. This outweighs the fact that piercing weapons can only have 3 shots on the screen at once. So both players will be able to deal maximum damage once they each have piercing weapons. With that said, route choice really doesn't matter much from a time perspective, which is why "best ending" is the way to go. Each level is more or less the same length, and any time differences would be in how quickly I defeat bosses. I need to get through my Shadowrun TAS first, but this one is next on the list.
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Is there any interest in this run? These are the goals: 2 player, 100% kills, does not take damage, obtains best ending. For those not aware, the best ending is obtained by following a specific route (ACDFHKL) and not letting any mini-bosses escape or dying over a certain number of times. While this should be the most difficult route, it is not necessarily the fastest. However, I think this will be the most entertaining route and there will not be a large time difference compared to the "fastest" route. I have a testrun halfway through the first stage, using lsnes. It's pretty sloppy, but I got better as I went along. http://www.mediafire.com/?n2b8rrv3i7dmror Also I spent a fair bit of time trying to put together a hitbox overlay script in Lua, so if you still have that old script, Dromiceius, it would help a lot.
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I also voted yes on this.
The run doesn't just follow the rules/route of the hack; it frequently breaks out of the levels' intended route using glitches or other tricks. This sequence breaking makes for nice unexpected twists, especially if you have played the game before.
To my mind, this was the biggest argument against the Kaizo 2 run, that the TASed run was indistinguishable from a sufficiently well-done run by a normal player using savestates. I didn't see that in this run. The author purposely deviates from the expected route on several occasions, i.e., not using the blue turtle shell in the fire level, glitching through floors in the boo level or the walls in the swimming level, etc. To me this is clearly distinguishable as a TASed run. I would think future SMW hacks would be judged on this criteria also, which is consistent with the original rejection of the Kaizo 2 run for mainly following the "expected" route.
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OK, this is how you run a lua script. Take the text Randle posted in the Lua box here Post #298558, and copy the whole thing into WordPad and save it to your computer. Then edit the file extension from ".txt" to ".lua". If you're using Snes9x, you just go to File, Lua Scripting, New Lua Script Window. Browse for the text file, then hit Run. What that will do is give you the stats Randle set in the script. Now if you want to change things, just open the .lua file in WordPad (or click Edit in the Lua script window), and change the values he has at the top of the script (i.e., change "hp=30" to "hp=100", or change "boosted=0" to "boosted=1" to give yourself boosted reflexes.) To apply the changes, save your file, then reopen it from the New Lua Script Window and hit run, and your stats change after advancing by 1 frame. You can change this as many times as you like, and if you want to open another lua script just hit Stop and Browse again. The game remembers your stats even after you stop the script. Does that make sense? To help, below is the top portion of the script with my base values after I kill the King. (Except technically, exp should be 142 and karma should be 0) --BELOW ARE THE VALUES THAT YOU WANT --set allweapons to 1 if you want to get all weapons in your weapons list allweapons=1 --set allarmors to 1 if you want to get all weapons in your armor list allarmors=1 --don't set this higher than 16 711 679 nuyen=19250 --don't set hp higher than 200 hp=30 --don't set mp too high mp=0 --boosted reflexes boosted=0 --stats: --changing body will NOT change your max hp, though the game will think that you have this body-value --to change your max hp, change value of "hp" above body=3 --1 exp = 1/8 karma, don't set exp greater than 7 karma=17 exp=0 --don't set any below 1 or higher than 6 strength=3 charisma=3 computers=1 powerball=0 heal=0 invicibility=0 armor=0 summon=0 freeze=0 --don't set firearms greater than 16. setting it greater than 7 has no effect firearms=1
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Interesting! Maybe it's good that I'm holding off on the run for now. Let me know what you come up with please, because I don't know why I couldn't use the different release version for the final run. Wouldn't it be the same as choosing a J-ROM over a U-ROM? Also, would the different version be the infamous "Chop Shop" version? Lastly, are you familiar with Lua scripts? You can use the script Randle posted to give yourself max HP, skills, and weapons for the caryard fights, then use it again to reduce your stats back to what I have.
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I'm not very far into the final run, but I felt like sharing the progress for now. This run is in lsnes (v10). (posted it to 4shared since microstorage does not work for lsnes yet) http://www.4shared.com/file/H-J-y50-/movieslot1.html Part of the reason I'm posting a WIP now is that I'm still considering how many grenades I should buy, and I'm waiting until I come to a conclusion before getting much farther. Purchasing grenades definitely costs more frames than firing the weapon for max damage on the first frame possible (an ideal situation), but I think it would save frames against the King fight since there was so much running around in the previous WIP. I currently purchase 4, thinking I would use 2-3 against the King, and have one in reserve in case I need it for the other fights, but I need to do some testing before I progress much further. The other reason is that I'm considering picking up Hamfist instead of both Norbert and Jetboy. If I buy one less grenade in my current WIP, I'll have 500 Nuyen and I can grab Hamfist before I go to car yards and skip Norbert and Jetboy entirely. This really isn't a bad idea at all, since it costs around 2,500 frames to get them, and the first room in Rust Stilettos only takes 1,600 frames in the previous WIP. Beyond that room, I don't think Norbert would save many frames, since I plan to only kill the Rust Stilettos boss in the final version, and Kitsune's spells become the primary damage dealer at all later parts of the run. Also, here is a revised lua script for lsnes. gui.subframe_update(false) on_paint = function() gui.right_gap(160); --SET VALUES hp=memory.readbyte(0x7E33DE) mp=memory.readbyte(0x7E3C96) xp=memory.readbyte(0x7E3C11) ka=xp/8 nu=memory.readbyte(0x7E3C0D)+memory.readbyte(0x7E3C0E)*256+memory.readbyte(0x7E3C0F)*65536 kh=memory.readbyte(0x7E340B) km=memory.readbyte(0x7E3C9D) st=memory.readbyte(0x7E3410) no=memory.readbyte(0x7E33F7) je=memory.readbyte(0x7E33F2) of=memory.readbyte(0x7E39F1) ki=memory.readbyte(0x7E2FA6) dr=memory.readbyte(0x7E3546) --DISPLAY gui.text(512,10, "HP: "..hp) gui.text(512,25,"MP: "..mp) if ka<1>1 then gui.text(512,40,"KARMA: "..ka) end end gui.text(512,55,"NUYEN: "..nu) gui.text(512,130,"KITSUNE HP: "..kh) gui.text(512,145,"KITSUNE MP: "..km) gui.text(512,85,"ORIFICE HP: "..of) gui.text(512,100,"JETBOY HP: "..je) gui.text(512,115,"NORBERT HP: "..no) gui.text(512,160,"STEELFLIGHT HP: "..st) gui.text(512,190,"KING HP: "..ki) gui.text(512,205,"DRAKE HP: "..dr) end SonOfDog - I've been thinking a lot about whether to get Negotiation. I think you're right that getting this skill (it only costs around 150 frames to get the keyword and purchase the skill) is faster than staking Vladimir again. The problem that I'm seeing is I will only have 17 karma after the caryards, and I can't get both Negotiation and multiple shadowrunners (it costs 12 karma for 3 shadowrunners, 7 karma for only 2). Unless I'm mistaken, it would cost 15 karma for Level 5 Negotiation, meaning I wouldn't be able to have any additional shadowrunners without farming karma. Since I need at the minimum Kitsune and a Decker for Drake Tower (7 karma), I just don't see how to make this work. Also, if I do pick up Hamfist instead of Norbert + Jetboy, I will need an additional 1,650 to get the cortex bomb operation. Do you think I can save this much with Negotiation?
Post subject: lsnes WIP Sharing
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Sorry to ask so many questions about lsnes, but I wanted to share a WIP I put together, and I can't upload it into the microstorage site. I tried uploading one of my savestates and the script tells me "Sorry, I didn't say it was okay to ZIP it." Does anyone know how to fix this? Also I tried searching the lsnes manual and searching threads for someone else posting an lsnes WIP without success, so I can't tell if anyone has figured this out already. Thanks in advance for the help!
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Oh haha, I was using rr1-Δ8ε1, didn't see the new version. Glad the arrow key problem was fixed too. Thanks!
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That makes sense, thanks again! Another question: I loaded a few memory addresses and tried to save them as a .wch file. This is a shortened version of how the file looks: Screen X pix C0x7E0CE0zB Screen y pix C0x7E0CE2zB What happens is the first address shows up with a "square" character that must be deleted to display correctly. The last line shows up fine since there are no lines below it. It's not a big deal, but is there a way to prevent having to edit each address when I reload?
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Thanks! So just to clarify, all addresses should start with "C0x" and end with "z", then the last letter designates how it is displayed. What if I want to put a description in, such as designating that address as "HP", is that possible? The Lua script works great, thanks for putting it outside of the screen also!