Posts for neogiegue

Posted: 3/28/2011 1:13 AM
Post subject: Ghostbusters 2
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neogiegue
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Joined: 11/16/2010
Posts: 7
I've started up a TAS of Ghostbusters 2. Doing this, I realize how bad the game is now. I didn't seem to notice that 20ish years ago when I was first playing it. It's not all that entertaining of a game by itself, and while it's not an autoscroller there's very little you can actually do to speed up the game at all. I figure the best way to make a video playable is to do a run where everything possibly is killed or collected. The definitions are a little stretched, but this TAS work-in-progress: * Aims for 100% completion [Attack everything that can be attacked] * Aims for fastest time [By never slowing down] * Trades speed for entertainment. * 100% accuracy on shots fired. [No shots miss or are wasted for RNG purposes] * Will color a painting with slime [if completed.] These are sort of cheap goals, since that's the only thing you could actually do to make this an interesting video. I try to hit everything that flies on screen that reacts when shot. I succeed in level 1. Levels 2 and 4 (car stages) I do, if you only count the ghosts. Level 3 is close to succeeding, but at the very end there are 3 ghosts and 4 logos that fly out almost all at once, and you can't shoot fast enough to hit them all. I wasn't able to find a position where a trap would catch everything. This video covered the first 4 stages, which is approximately 50% of the game. We miss out on the Statue of Liberty stages, which are probably going to be harder to TAS than the rest, as they appear to rely on the RNG for items floating around rather than having them be pre-set. Speaking of pre-set, items don't appear to be completely stationary. Ghosts and logos can be slightly manipulated to appear based on timing/speed when you scroll. This mostly seems useful to make a couple things appear a little bit lower than they normally do, but this might be usable towards the goals. While I know the game fairly well, are there any suggestions to make this more interesting? Link to video
Posted: 3/4/2011 3:26 AM
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neogiegue
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Joined: 11/16/2010
Posts: 7
Actual content update! I ran a second test video, this time to show the actual plot. This completes the first of 3 plots (David Owlfeather) in 62,000 frames using the debug code for money. This isn't a serious TAS attempt, just a demonstration of how a full movie would look after the 20-30 minutes of hacking the matrix for cash you saw in the first 2 videos. On top of being way easier to watch than the first two, this video happens to feature a bit more luck manipulation (A couple of stray shots are fired off to avoid unwinnable random encounters), a couple of new behaviors that needed documented. New notes: * Reloading by pushing A when your gun is empty does NOT cycle the RNG. * Guards in corp buildings have a wide range of view, but they only appear to check every 20 frames. They're also deaf, and won't hear the cyborg in combat armor running behind them (or even in front of them a few pixels, if you get back behind them before that 20 frame mark) * I mention choosing the pistol in earlier notes. In this video, I take the best shotgun option to provide some variety. My analysis: the shotgun is pretty badass, and it might be the weapon of choice in TAS attempts. * I also mention taking the best armor for $900. In this video, I'm wearing the Light Combar Armor for $10,000. In one recording, I stood still in the Renraku fight outside the dragon and never took damage. Since $10,000 can be earned in one matrix run, it's probably worth the time. On that note, the only thing fought in this video that poses a thread are the hell hound packs. With those out of the way, there's nothing very challenging until the Renraku run, so upgrading physical stats probably isn't very useful for this TAS. * Friendly fire is on, in case you weren't aware. You can see around frame 52,000 where one Renraku guard ends up killing his friend. I don't know if this provides the player with Karma. * Hell hounds are only supposed to show up in the wilderness and caves. Despite this, I kill 3 of them in downtown Seattle. I also manipulate my way out of about 4 hell hound ambushes (They jumped me on a visit to the Salish-Shide before making it to the city in one case). Link to video Link to video
Posted: 1/27/2011 2:47 AM
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neogiegue
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Joined: 11/16/2010
Posts: 7
I've started one, but it's not great. The hit detection is so bad, and the angle the ball bounces when it hits something seems random, as opposed to being remotely based on where it hits the paddle or the angle it connects at. You can see this happen a couple of times in my WIP. Rotating the paddle isn't that entertaining, as each stage goes something like this: * Set up place to blow through the next segment of the level * Blow past the segment as fast as you can. * Hit a roadblock, fight the random angle generator to get back to step 1. * Repeat steps 1-3 a couple times. * Boss Fight. Some levels have bonus bosses, some levels have actual challenges. EX: Level 1 is 'hit the boss until he dies', level 2 is 'get bonus points while the timer ticks down'. * One last screen before the end of the level, usually designed to eat time. * Tallys up bonus points, shows you next levels' boss. Stages 1 and 2 are straight lines, then the stages start offering branching paths. You rotate mostly to navigate said paths. I've played up to the fire world, which appears to be the next-to-final level. The B button changes the speed of the ball, in theory. The lower-right corner counts from 1 to 3 when you push it, though I'm not sure how much impact that has yet. I used a file marked Bad Omen (J) [p1]. As it turns out, the American name is Devilish, and I have one marked Devilish (U) [c][!]. I suspect that anyone else looking to work on this should consider using Devilish, instead of Bad Omen, unless an interesting reason to use the (J) release is found. I haven't found any interesting glitches, and there's not much written up about this game. It's not a memorable title, so I wouldn't expect there to be much floating around the net about it. If I were to flag my WIP, it'd be Aims for Fastest Time/Loses No Lives/Electrocutes a Pinball. My WIP TAS is available at http://www.mediafire.com/?fk8d11jtyil3258. I'm recording it and will try to have upload it to YouTube, for increased visibility.[/url] Link to video
Posted: 1/12/2011 1:06 AM
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neogiegue
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Joined: 11/16/2010
Posts: 7
I apologize for double-posting, but I've started a new run and made progress faster this time. To be honest, this is the result of some research that should have been done before actually attempting a run. Here are the new notes and plans. 1a: REVISED - Samurai. Better starting stats for combat, will hire a decker that starts with stats and gear. [Need 1500 to hire Rhianna, including cab fare] Deckers have 2/5/2/2 4/3/5.8/0, firearms 2 comp.3 Samurai have 4/3/4/1 2/4/5.9/0, firearms 4. You can hire a decker with INT6/Comp.6, which saves about 20 karma from leveling it on Joshua. Programs determine your probability of success and upper cap on what you can do, stats determine speed and likelihood of finding something useful in data stores. Samurai are slower but otherwise better in combat, which is most of the plot. New/Revised costs: * Buy Attack upgrades - $11340 [lv5 needed to get through any IC with luck manipulation] * Buy Deception upgrades - $12960 [lv5 needed to get through any IC] * Extra Memory Upgrades requires to run 2 programs @ lv5 - $3500 * Extra Storage Upgrades - Initial deck caps at 250 - $100 per 25 - $600ish Frame Counts: Lag frames between conversation frames: 12 Lag frames when changing zones: 118 [4 second load times on a cartridge!] Lag frames in a building's intro text: 30 Lag frames when entering the pause menu: 30 I need to make scripts to count these for me. Revised Bullet points: * Intro. Be a Samurai. * Sell Gear. * Get Michael's Stuff. * Hire Ricky. Trade clips to Joshua. Sell Ricky's stuff. Dismiss Ricky. * Go to Penumbra District. Hire Marrs. Trade Clips to Joshua. Sell Marrs' stuff, especially that $700 shotgun. Dismiss Marrs. * Go to Downtown Seattle. Pay $150 to enter Matchstick. Hire Rhianna, the best decker NPC in the game, for $1330 about 2 minutes into the game. Go milk the Matrix for cash. ** First run: $4,000. It costs us about $2k total to hire Rhianna, so she's paid for herself and then some already. ** I buy Deception 3 and all the memory my deck can hold, then go back and do some more hacking. ** Second run: I get a good random system (#6), it's the one I milked in my first attempt, but I've got better stats this time. $9200 from 4 files. I have $11,190 including the money I didn't spend from last time. Note that this hack would be practically impossible on a standard run, due to the low chance of actually successfully attacking. at 8:03 into the game, I have enough money to buy all the cyberware I want that isn't Wired Reflexes, plus the best armor before doing anything else. I can also get about another $1,000 by selling Rhianna's stuff. I'm also considering upgrading the decker gear slightly more, to make future hack attempts easier, but that won't likely help our overall speed too much, since it's just a matter of checking each frame when hacking (I really wish I could find the RNG's output in RAM Watch. Haven't found it yet.) I've uploaded the move here, if you want to watch it in Gens. A Youtube version will be up once Youtube wants to cooperate again. is viewable here EDIT: Went back and started looking into the plot side of things, as well as refining out the finances. It looks like 70-80k nuyen might be enough to clear the game, assuming you hire someone to hack locked doors, though my playaround testing cost me closer to $130k due to many deaths hunting hellhounds, hiring a runner for life. Most of the plot is doable with the equipment I expected, though I did have to upgrade to the $10k armor. You also have to spend 18 Karma to get your Reputation up to 4 in order to do the second plot thread. This will costs you all of the karma from the first plot thread, and some of the karma earned from the third.
Posted: 11/24/2010 2:11 AM
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neogiegue
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Joined: 11/16/2010
Posts: 7
Here's what I've figured out so far, besides what was posted by nifboy: * See the earlier notes for luck manipulation. To be added to the list of things that changes the next random event is 'walking into a computer terminal'. * Randomness in Matrix combat is determined frame-by-frame. This does not make combat completely trivial, as you do apparently still need to have some stats to justify the success. For example, I could not use lv2 Deception on lv5 ICE. Once I upgraded to lv3 Deception, I could get through lv5 ICE. * There is one particular system that gives access to a Lv5 Orange DS node, which is particularly good for raiding for cash. I had this last time I played, but I noticed too late that I had forgot to resume recording. * Movement is a little loose. The game gives you a lot of wiggle room for contact, and pushes you very easily toward where you should go. You also have to go the opposite direction to turn in tight circles. You can see this in a couple spots in the video, where I want to go down and have to start by going up, turning to a side, then go down. This can only really be negated if you're in a corner, in which case you can flip around without the small half-circle. * I also do some messing around with the collision in the video you see, to see if it affects speed at all. I don't see any obvious benefit from anything collision-wise. * Moving diagonally seems to result in a higher overall speed, though I haven't gotten numbers to compare to moving in straight lines, and you can sort of see this in combat. Note that in combat your character's speed drops as well. * There are a lot of lag frames. Each panel of dialog has at least 10 lag frames, and the last one of a sequence is significantly more. There's also a few lag frames when you load into a new area each time. Attacking, especially the first shot in combat, can take up to 45 frames between pushing A and a shot being fired. This seems to be related to the targeting code. * A full game of Shadowrun, without tool-assist, takes 3-5 hours once you know what you're doing. The length of a TAS is mostly going to be related to how much matrix grinding for cash needs to be done to complete the game. In the video linked above, I get the best gun in the game for everything but raw damage output and the best armor that doesn't require any questing in less than 12 minutes. * My idea on an optimal path is this: [Edited 11/27/10 - Faster initial path] 1: Be a decker.- Mostly arbitrary. I like deckers. 2: Sell gun and armor to start. Hire Ricky with the money, sell Ricky's gear. Buy Predator pistol. 3: Spend $250 on initial plot event, end at $690. 4: Plot starts. 4a: do plot event in Pullyaup. You have to do this first to trigger the one in the starting area. Get killed outside of the greenhouse, it's faster than fighting and winning doesn't change the plot. Wake up with $97, enough for taxis between areas. 4b: Do simple matrix runs (2 or 3) for Mortimer. At some point, ask Mortimer about the plot bit he has. 4c: Use the money from Mortimer to upgrade your cyberdeck, then try to manipulate out an easier advanced matrix run from Vigor + Jarl. There should be a couple orange datastores you can get into with the starting programs, and you can start getting $2k+ from data files if you're lucky that way. 4d: Finish buying up stuff from the list of things to buy: [unordered] * Buy Predator at Ares in starting area: $645 [Fastest, not cheapest] * Buy Armor Jacket at Crime Mall - $900 * Buy SmartLink from WireMasters - $1500 * Buy Dermal Plating from Seattle General Hospital - $2800 x 3 * Buy Wired Reflexes from WireMasters - $20k per level x 2 * Buy Smartgun accessory from Weapon World - $600 * Buy Silencer accessory from Crime Mall - $400 * Buy at least 5 storage boosts for the cyberdeck - $500 * Buy at least 2 memory boosts for the cyberdeck - $1000 As necessary to accelerate the process of getting money for the above upgrades: * Buy Attack upgrades - $? * Buy Deception upgrades - $? * Buy a stronger cyberdeck - $? [I don't know what the required minimums are. As best I can tell, your version of the program needs to be at most 2 levels weaker than the IC to have an effect on it at all (EX: you need Attack-3 to hit a lv5 ICE)] 5: Resume plots. Total costs to get the (suspected) ideal cyberwear and initial gear: $51,645. If you want to start progressing through without Wired Reflexes, which I'm pretty sure you won't need until after finishing a plot thread or two, you only need $11,645 spent on gear and cyberwear. I assume that the faster you can get this amount, the faster you can handle combat for most of the initial game. You'll have to spend Karma eventually, but this should handle your needs for quite a while. Expected Cyberwear setup: Wired Reflexes 2 - $40,000, 3 Essence (The cost of lv2 is 1 more, instead of 2 more. It's a helpful bug) Smartlink - $1500, .5 Essence Dermal Plating 3 - $5400, 1.5 Essence Cybereyes - $1800 on Council Island, .2 Essence. Totals - 5.2 Essence used, $48,600 total spent. Over 80% of that is Wired Reflexes, which can probably wait a while. Muscle Replacement: Boosts Strength and Quickness. I'm ignoring Strength this run, so I'll save time by not purchasing this. Speaking of stats, my notes on them: -Strength: pointless outside of melee, ignore -Body: Main defense stat. Will be important. Dermal Plate is relatively fast 3 point boost. -Quickness: Main offense (overall) stat. Going to help a lot, but Wired Reflexes is expensive. -Intelligence: Affects combat and cybercombat successes. Important. -Willpower: Affects magic and combat successes. Not likely to be as important. I haven't saved any progress since the above video. [Again, I played more, but didn't record it]. I may start the run over and see if I can clean up some of the sloppiness and collision testing I did. [EDIT 11/27] More data, primarily on planning, added. I restarted my run, cut the time it takes to do the goals in the initial movie from 12 to 6 minutes, and then realize it's desynced. This is frustrating. If someone else wants to take this info and try something with it, please do so.
Posted: 11/17/2010 12:07 AM
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neogiegue
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Joined: 11/16/2010
Posts: 7
Genesis - Shadowrun Progress: Initial tests of TASability and entertainment value [post 252675]Discussion Thread[/post] Link to video
Posted: 11/16/2010 4:56 AM
Post subject: Shadowrun - Another startup
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neogiegue
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 11/16/2010
Posts: 7
I know that a couple years ago, someone started up a Shadowrun TAS for the Genesis, found how much of a pain the RNG is, and then abandoned it without much fanfare. I decided to start messing around with TAS tools by picking this game, before searching here to see if anyone had any comments on it. After getting a feel for the game, I found that thread. I took the comments on the RNG, some of which I'd already deduced on my own, and started planning. I can see that the original attempt went with a samurai character, thinking that skipping the matrix scenes would save time. I am playing as a decker, and plan on using the matrix to gear myself up far quicker. While my combat stats are a little lower at first, I buy the arguably best gun in the game about 4 minutes in, and the best armor until the end game around 8. The other difference is that I'll be able to get wired up much quicker by matrix runs than anything physical. While a starter matrix run earns about $500, manipulating the RNG to get data files that can be sold off to a data fence makes me about $4,000 on my second run. At the high end, a matrix run is worth about $6,000 and data files can be worth at least as much. This money will be used to buy the best cyberware and gear available, at which point I should have earned enough karma from runs to boost up my physical stats a bit, and combat shouldn't be an issue while I progress through the plot. Before I get too far, I'm not totally certain that Shadowrun will actually be entertaining for a full video. I know it's marked as likely to be interesting, but combat is kind of wonky and anything resembling a plot blows past. There's also a lot of places where the game doesn't respond to input between scenes and surprisingly long load times for a cartridge. Here's a link to what I've roughly gotten done so far, about 12 minutes of gametime. It's pretty sloppy, and I clearly forgot I was recording around the 34,000 frame mark for 2,000 frames. I'll have to redo that if initial feedback is positive. If there's any interest tomorrow, I may post up the information I've worked out so far. It's not a lot different than what was already known, but I'll post it regardless.