Posts for goofydylan8


1 2
14 15
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player (509)
Joined: 11/2/2010
Posts: 359
I saw that Rod Land was on the list of ideas, looked into it and thought it would be a short (probably around 6 or 7 minutes total if I had to guess) and pretty interesting so I decided to give it a try. Here is a WIP I have been working on for a little bit. This is through "Scene" 8 and beats the first boss. There are 3 more bosses and 23 more levels. The game was only released in Europe and Japan which is why it is the E file (Rod Land (E) [!]). If I understand how PAL timing works I believe it is currently 1 minute 36.34 seconds. Hardest part of optimizing this game clicking directional buttions, fire, or jump on either character can affect the bonus weapon that appears when an enemy is defeated. Let me know what you think about my work so far.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player (509)
Joined: 11/2/2010
Posts: 359
Re-record count is unknown because it was completely done using fceux's built in TAS Edit which doesn't have a re-record count. It lists a "tweak count" if you keep saving the recording as a .tas file but I have found that this number does not represent re-record count at all and using the .tas file causes RAM usage to balloon out of control so I just exported to fm2 whenever I wanted to save my progress.
Post subject: Pro Wrestling
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player (509)
Joined: 11/2/2010
Posts: 359
I was looking through the list of ideas and saw the Speed Demos Archive version of this video so I thought I would give it a try. To win a match you have two choices, you can either pin an opponent for 3 seconds or by being in the ring whereas the opponent is out of the ring after the 20 second out of ring period passes. Here is my first attempt at the fastest running. The strategy used in this version is the same used in the SDA run which is to either get thrown out or throw the opponent out of the ring as fast as possible and wait for the twenty seconds to run out. I need to investigate if there is any lag present and experiment a little bit more to find if there is a slightly more optimal frame to get thrown out of the ring on each level. Here is my second attempt at the fastest running. This time I used the strategy of trying to pin the opponent in the shortest amount of time. This may be able to be optimized by a few frames but is slower than the first run by a large enough amount to show that getting thrown out is by far the fastest strategy unless someone else can find a way to quicker pin but I don't think there is. Here are some relevant memory addresses: 0140 Character X-Position 0042 Character Y-Position 0141 Character X Hit Box Position 0043 Character Y Hit Box Position 0149 Opponent X-Position 0148 Opponent Y-Position 0067 Character Life Value 0077 Opponent Life Value 0087 Clock Time (Minutes) 0086 Clock Time (Seconds) 0085 Clock Time (Frames) 0084 Out of Ring/Pin Time (Seconds) 0083 Out of Ring/Pin Time (Frames) 0078 Enemy Frames to Standup 0151 Ref X-Position 0150 Ref Y-Position To pin an opponent I found that when the memory values are "Signed" the Opponent Life must be at 61 or less (it begins at -17 moving up to -128 and then 128 down to 61). The amount of life taken for some of the attacks are punches=4 (B), kicks=7 (A), clothesline=21 (Running A), knee=15 (Running B), body slam=15 (B, grapple can be done at any time), belly-to-back suplex=32 (L+A, grapple can be done at any time), vertical suplex=42 (Up+A, grapple can be done after opponent life hits -67 or worse, this may be 65 not sure), piledriver=51 (D+A, grapple can be done after enemy life hits -90). The moves where you jump from the ropes are 30 for the A move and 23 for the B move.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player (509)
Joined: 11/2/2010
Posts: 359
Alright here it is. I had forgotten that I had a separate video I was working with so when I hex-edited those levels in the final length was 215653 frames or 59 minutes 54.22 seconds. Here is an Excel document with the level by level breakdown since there is 101 levels and there is no reasonable way to present this data other than an Excel. I didn't go back and do the subpixel trick Randil suggested because as he said it is quite daunting of a task to go through 101 levels calculating the ideal left right balance to save a second or 2. I may if people really feel it can change the quality of the submission though. If there are any suggestions, critiques or comments I would love to hear them as I will probably give myself a day or two to test a few other level strategies and then submit.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player (509)
Joined: 11/2/2010
Posts: 359
Update on my progress. I finished the game (including the bonus levels) and it ended up taking a little bit longer than I had believed. It ended up being 216834 frames or 1 hour 13.9 seconds. I have a few simple things (like trying to hit select on the last frame before collecting the bag on each level) which could shave that down a by probably a second so I am going to wait to post the WIP after I go through those easy obvious ones. At that point I will post my file wait a week to make sure that I, or anyone else who wants to try, can't find a better strategy on any level at which point I will submit.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player (509)
Joined: 11/2/2010
Posts: 359
I have one level left on the third world which leaves me one full world left and then 30 bonus levels. I will probably finish the third world this week but senior year of mechanical engineering is sort of kicking my ass. Luckily I get a week for Thanksgiving and then a month of Christmas break is coming so I would say I would have a finished movie by January. I am trying to use your rules but as you said it makes things pretty terrible. For the most part I am currently concentrating on finding the best route's on each level because that can save seconds per level where as the left and right turn management would only save around 1 or 2 seconds for the whole run. If I do the bonus levels (and I don't see why I wouldn't) it is looking like it should end up being right around 50 minutes long.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player (509)
Joined: 11/2/2010
Posts: 359
I decided to take a swing at this game and as of the end of the first world managed to shave 82 frames off of Blublu's attempt. A 1.3 second improvement on a 10 minute video doesn't seem like much but when 80% of each level's time is spent on the cutscene between levels it is a bit more impressive. I still need to work on the rest of the 83 levels but I thought it was a good start. Frame precision is required for the zig-zag quick movement so to improve times new paths would most likely have to be found. Here are the current times for each level from the first frame where the screen is no longer black, to that same frame on the next level.
Level New Time (f)
Intro885
11510
22060
31612
42123
51387
61968
71636
82000
91660
101473
111863
121453
132125
141544
151884
162572
175726
Boss 1 2338
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player (509)
Joined: 11/2/2010
Posts: 359
@boct1584: Yeah, I just used TAS Editor. Other than 3 major issues (if you play continuously through without converting to fm2 and then back RAM usage can balloon up to above a megabyte, along with that it can take forever to open the files once they get too large, and there is an error that causes FCEUX to crash) it is in my opinion the best way to TAS. It allows for quick editing and making large changes like I am about to, sadly, have to do. @Aqfaq: Ah, my hopes dashed as quickly as they were raised. A lesson in not checking forums thoroughly enough I guess. I humbly withdraw this run with the knowledge that a new GREATLY improve version will be submitted very soon. The improvements are just too great and blatant to allow this to continue as is.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Experienced player (509)
Joined: 11/2/2010
Posts: 359
Is it possible to use the Zapper while using TAS Editor or is that feature not built in yet? I tried but could not figure out a way for it to work.
1 2
14 15