Post subject: Alien Storm
Skilled player (1325)
Joined: 9/7/2007
Posts: 1354
Location: U.S.
Im thinking about doing a 2p TAS of this. However, Im having a bit of trouble finding the HP Addresses for the bosses since they change between playable characters. Any help would be appreciated. This is gonna be a short TAS so theres not much to worry about.
Player (71)
Joined: 8/24/2004
Posts: 2562
Location: Sweden
Nice! I love this game, and I'm glad that someone else shows interest in it too. I don't think I will be of much help to your requests, and I can't recall any tricks in the game it self either, only that one can cheat death with the robot if I recall correctly. Just as he takes the final blow, hit the A-button to blow your self up. You will respawn, but if anything as much as sneezes at you, you will die. I don't see how that would help in a TAS though. Good luck!
Skilled player (1325)
Joined: 9/7/2007
Posts: 1354
Location: U.S.
I did a quick section of the first level. http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/109401465/Alien%20Storm%20TAS.gmv This is bascially what a TAS of this would look like.
Editor, Experienced player (930)
Joined: 7/20/2011
Posts: 345
I don't think that was really enough to show us what the TAS will be like. That said, this is another game I've not played before. However, I do think the game would be an interesting watch, especially as 2P. I await to see what you can do with this! Edit: I think I may have a bugged game, or is it normal to have a bunch of accented characters where the title should be?
Current thoughts: Hachiemon (J) for GBA.
Post subject: Alien storm
Player (69)
Joined: 4/17/2014
Posts: 69
I'm about 90% through a test run which i upped for you guys, link is here http://www11.zippyshare.com/v/19580451/file.html I can't make my mind up, but when i do the proper one, do i use the special attack to save time, or save it for bosses? Running and bashing enemies is well faster for kills, seems to be more powerful than normal attacks, but the specials i'm curious about...it might kill the small fry goons, but later on you'd still need to sprint around getting them, so i'm at a fork in the path there. no damage seems to be possible too.
Nothing to fear but fear itself - Franklin D. Roosevelt
Player (71)
Joined: 8/24/2004
Posts: 2562
Location: Sweden
First of all let me just say that I'm very happy to see that someone is picking this game up! It's an awesome game and it deserves a place here. Second of all I want to apologies beforehand that I might sound a bit negative without much constructiveness. Read through the post entirely though, there will be some nice time savers included! I really encourage you to complete this and I hope that you make something awesome out of this. Let's get started! Menu handling: -Not sure if energy level hard is a requirement as it is most likley won't change anything as recource handling will be dealt with anyway. Probably it is a good thing to keep it at hard just to show the most extreme settings of the game. -Changing to rapid fire ON is a big no-no in my opinion as you can input a shot every second frame anyway. So in the case of TAS you loose time to set that option. -Not using two players? The game will be faster with two players and it allows for more entertaining combos! Mission 1: -A lot of hits missed (looks sloppy) and you loose time -Isn't it also stronger to vault and shoot from above? Stun + vault kills enemies much faster if I recall correctly, but I can be wrong. Attach a RAM watch to check what attacks deal most damage over time! -Bad manipulation of enemies positions -Keeping enemies off screen. Might be better to allow them further in so that you can deal damage more rapidly Barn (there are chickens in there, yes)/storage autoscroller: -Loosing time in the scrolling scenes, also not destroying everything (which is a must of course! ;) ) -Missing shots -Bad positioning of the aim -Going after crates before killing enemies = loosing time Mission 2: -Missing hits -Positions enemies half outside of the screen loosing time -Boss can be dealt with faster I think, you look a bit passive at some times. Running fast as hell - Level 1: -Missing shots Mission 3: -Bad positioning -Bad manipulation of enemies Supermarket: -Missing energy pickups in supermarket autoscroller in level 2, perhaps not needed in the later levels anyway. -Bad positioning not killing enemies as fast as possible -Again not destroying anything, but thats just my taste. You can do whatever of course. Mission 4: -Not destroying everything in the electronics shop -Missing energy pickup in electronics shop -Better movement and enemy prediction could be used Mission 5: -Not destroying everything in the science lab -Going off target of the enemy in the back to pickup energy instead of finishing the enemy first and progress the auto scrolling -Going off target at the end of the science lab to kill the flying monster a bit to early it looks. Mission 6: -Kills the enemy carrying energy tank to quickly making the enemy stage 2 spawn outside of the picture loosing time. -Bad manipulation of the blue flying things keeping it stuck half way outside of screen not dealing damage fast enough. -Bad boss manipulation -Bad manipulation of the flies carrying the energy tanks Running fast as hell level 2: -Missing shots looking sloppy -Could it be faster jumping over the obstacles to allow fire for a sustained time? Mission 7: -Running around a lot to keep two enemies stunned instead of packing them all together. -Entering the space ship too late? - As far as I can recall there is a way to enter the spaceship a bit sooner, but I might be remembering wrong on that. Just checked and indeed, if you stand at the door to the spaceship as the creatures come out of it, you can gain early access. Space ship auto scroller: -Not destroying everything -Going off target to destroy the last part of the wall in the left section -Not posititioned with the aim to kill the enemies first frame possible in the right section -Pausing fire against the last enemy in the right section Mission 8: Corridor 1: -Close to stacking all enemies but avoids it instead -Uses special attack so that the enemy bounces outside of the screen thus loosing time Autoscroller 1: -Bad positioning not killing the enemies on the first possible frame -Missed shots - Looking sloppy -Hits the last enemy in the right section very late -Waiting for plenty frames before killing the last enemy before exiting the autoscroller Corridor 2: -As far as I know it is way quicker to roll-attack the kangoroos. It takes a bit of positioning so that they don't block the attack but instead allowing you to pass through them during the entire attack. Autoscroller 2: -Bad positioning -Missing shots -Taking much time to kill some of the enemies letting them go off screen -Not destroying everything Edit: Also, there is already a topic for Alien Storm Edit 2: Another tip is to use the Microstorage for uploading your input files also. That way you don't have to use other random upload sites. Edit 3: Special attacks sorted by fastest time Man: 81 frames Woman: 93 frames Robot: 135 frames (No matter where he is positioned)
Player (69)
Joined: 4/17/2014
Posts: 69
Good feedback, just playing this back and there's mountains of improvements to be done the rapid fire setting option's definitely a no-no, it's kinda slow I noticed when playing it back that i missed shots like crazy, not to mention the side scrolling bits, there's a few bugs to iron out, i missed quite a few enemies on the last section. It'll definitely save time getting the monsters packed together, works great for the barrel slugs. I'm gonna use some of these ideas, i should definitely aim to demolish everything, sticking to the man, he's definitely got the fastest special, think i can probably get a couple more special's in before the last sidescrolling section, hopefully saving a few frames when i'm dealing with the kangaroo guys.
Nothing to fear but fear itself - Franklin D. Roosevelt
Player (71)
Joined: 8/24/2004
Posts: 2562
Location: Sweden
Sounds great. Keep posting WIP's so that we can follow the progress and maybe point out stuff along the way.
Player (69)
Joined: 4/17/2014
Posts: 69
The improvements are going pretty well so far, i managed to conserve in excess of 1000 frames by mission 2. It should turn out pretty good, when i get about 50% done, i'll be sure to post it, though for some reason, microstorage was giving me errors when i tried to upload the .bkm file yesterday. Gotta redo stage 3, it was faster than the last one, but still not quite there yet. Guess i could always use zippy, lol http://www52.zippyshare.com/v/14077194/file.html Emu used was Bizhawk
Nothing to fear but fear itself - Franklin D. Roosevelt
Warepire
He/Him
Editor
Joined: 3/2/2010
Posts: 2178
Location: A little to the left of nowhere (Sweden)
There's also this option: http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/my#uploadfile Requires you to be logged in to the main site, it's the same log in information as you use for the forum though.
Player (71)
Joined: 8/24/2004
Posts: 2562
Location: Sweden
That WIP looks promising! In mission 2 I think you can kill the green alien chewing on the roof by somersault and shoot before you let it down from there. Not sure if that works on the aliens outside of the electronics store though. Also I think you missed a swing on one of the blue flying monsters right before the electronics store. Any reason to miss that energy pickup in the electronics store btw? You grabbed everything before that, just not that pickup. Other than that it looks very good so far!
Player (69)
Joined: 4/17/2014
Posts: 69
I'm going to redo the entire mission 2 as it wasn't properly optimized, got to experiment with the somersault, it could make the overall finished product look better. I still can't figure out if it's the most powerful attack, it kills most small monsters, though other's it doesn't seem to kill them right off, when i get busy again, that's definitely on the to do list. Thanks for the link Warepire, that's gonna be handy in the near future.
Nothing to fear but fear itself - Franklin D. Roosevelt
Player (71)
Joined: 8/24/2004
Posts: 2562
Location: Sweden
Poked some stuff together. Credits goes out to adelikat, scrimpy, FerretWarlord, and RGamma. Hope I did not forget someone. Sorry if I did. Here's some RAM-addresses Alien Storm (W)[!].wch
Domain 68K RAM
SystemID GEN
CE0C	w	u	0	68K RAM	Energy player1
CE0A	b	u	0	68K RAM	Health player 1
D872	b	u	0	68K RAM	Monsters 1
D992	b	u	0	68K RAM	Monsters 2
DAB2	b	u	0	68K RAM	Monsters 3
DBD2	b	u	0	68K RAM	Monsters 4
DE12	b	u	0	68K RAM	Monsters 5
DCF2	b	u	0	68K RAM	Monsters 6
DF32	b	u	0	68K RAM	Monsters 7
CE8A	b	u	0	68K RAM	Health player 2
CE8C	w	u	0	68K RAM	Energy player 2
Energy start levels depending on selected difficulty:
Start value easy = 12288
Start value normal = 8192
Start value hard = 4096
Health start levels depending on selected difficulty:
Start value easy: 128
Start value normal: 96
Start value hard: 64
Energy consumption:
Special attack = 3072
Vault shot = 28 energy
Rocket launcher = 40
Grenade = 40
Electric arc = 24
Normal shot = 4 energy
Pickups:
Energy refill adds 1024
Health refill adds 8
Damage:
Special attack 20
Vault shot 12
Grenade 6
Rocket 6
Flame 6
Pistol 6
Roll-attack 2
Normal attack 2
Run-and-hit 2
Hope this helps a bit. Also note that I played around with the different characters while doing this. That's why some of the weapon types might appear in the text. In general it seems that the different characters deal the exact same amount of damage, just that the animation look different.
Player (69)
Joined: 4/17/2014
Posts: 69
Sound advice guys, the info on attack power has helped quite a bit. Turned out you can get that alien feller hanging from the house with a vault shot, which looks cool, (EDIT : oddly enough, the aliens that hop out of the manhole are invincible for a second or 2, so i couldn't get them as they pop out) I figured a handy trick where you can use that to group those wierd pink crawly things together as they walk on screen, seems they bounce backwards, then you can get a couple of hits on the next goon. haha, i missed a piece of wall in the barn back on stage 1, so i redone it up to the current point. http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/download/15780787477613632
Nothing to fear but fear itself - Franklin D. Roosevelt
Player (71)
Joined: 8/24/2004
Posts: 2562
Location: Sweden
I think you can save time in mission two by vault killing the alien chewing on the house before you kill the slugs. The slugs takes a while to spawn and are a bit invulnerable before they are fully out I think? I made an example found here
Player (69)
Joined: 4/17/2014
Posts: 69
Updated and shortened further, i've implemented the vault attack in a few places, looks way better, i got those drain fellers as they land. http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/download/15934076750047693
Nothing to fear but fear itself - Franklin D. Roosevelt
Player (71)
Joined: 8/24/2004
Posts: 2562
Location: Sweden
Looks pretty solid
Player (69)
Joined: 4/17/2014
Posts: 69
thanks man, certainly coming on a bit, looks fab compared to the test run... latest update...it's up to the 7th-8th stage, cant remember lol but there's an interesting little fact about those slugs, scope the the end stage before hecteyes. you can whack the slugs and then flip and wreck them, looks like i may actually re-dub, but i'm gonna complete this one then submit it, the re-dub should be straight forward, its kind of like golden axe AI. http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/download/16068806935246990
Nothing to fear but fear itself - Franklin D. Roosevelt
Player (71)
Joined: 8/24/2004
Posts: 2562
Location: Sweden
The stages plays very nice but I did notice something about the two bosses that might need some re-doing. In the first part of the boss (the crawling one in mission 6) you miss some shots because you shoot to much to fast. The boss needs a bit of cool down before he can be hit again. If you correct this you will save both time and energy. This can be spotted while watching the RAM-address D992. The second part, the hoovering boss. It looks pretty good in general, but you can also hit the boss when switching sides. It is possible to land vault attacks against it without being hit yourself for example, and if that fails you can allways roll-attack or make a running swing I suppose. Not much left of the game now so keep it up! Looking forward to the next WIP as always!
Player (69)
Joined: 4/17/2014
Posts: 69
looks like its definitely down to the final hurdle before submission, perhaps i might do it over from stage 7, not 100% sure, but perhaps an improvement can be made with handling those guys who hop out of the bushes. the boss fights look much cleaner, and i found a sweet spot on stage 6's running stage, used autofire for that and probably saved tons of frames. http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/download/16125962866837303 I still can't be sure if i missed 2 kangaroo guys in the last section, i think they go around the back of the counter type thing, think i'm gonna ram watch that bit, though theres a back up plan thats kind of random. if not i'm gonna use my feet and nail them with player 2, thats gonna be fun, i just need to hold down/left and spam fire lol
Nothing to fear but fear itself - Franklin D. Roosevelt
Player (71)
Joined: 8/24/2004
Posts: 2562
Location: Sweden
Well.. Space ship needs cool down between loosing every single part. Like you said you should watch RAM. You waste loads of energy without damaging the spaceship at all. Also, you can skip the last enemies when entering the crashed space ship. Check my movie http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/download/16159060767490638 The kangaroos can be bunched together and killed using a roll-attack. I think that should be faster at some points. In the final boss room I think you should ignore enemies which are not out to attack you. You only loose time going after them. Is this a no-damage run? If not you can take all the damage you want in this room and focus on dealing hits to the boss instead. So personally I would remake the part from the flying ship and implement the time-savers. Cheers!
Player (69)
Joined: 4/17/2014
Posts: 69
I never realized you could get straight into the ship after that group of 5, its gonna shorten stuff by a lot, nicely spotted, i need to re-dub it, thanks man, just had that itch about watching the last two missions. I thought the handling of the kangaroos seemed slow, the bazooka shots are very slow, it's like theres time for a coffee afterwards lol so rolling attacking them stun them? think i'm gonna hit the drawing board again for those bits and experiment somewhat, i thought the special for that group of slugs on stage 8 seemed a bit off too, if i could get away with saving more energy, it'll make the finish look better...solid feedback
Nothing to fear but fear itself - Franklin D. Roosevelt
Player (71)
Joined: 8/24/2004
Posts: 2562
Location: Sweden
About the roll-attacking the kangaroos have a look at this movie http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/download/16184927821957045 In the first bunch they tend to block me because I'm not aligned properly. I don't exactly know the mechanics or how the pixel positions come into play. But it all works. Watch the movie to the end, and also check the RAM while watching. :) For some reason there is no cool-down on the kangaroos if you roll-attack them. Might work on other enemies too, just that I think I've never seen it myself.
Player (69)
Joined: 4/17/2014
Posts: 69
the roll attack is really nifty, i worked it out, you get multiple hits only while holding forward, as soon as you let go you get the hit animation, thats an interesting programming error, its like the game doesn't register the collision.
Nothing to fear but fear itself - Franklin D. Roosevelt
Player (71)
Joined: 8/24/2004
Posts: 2562
Location: Sweden
I wonder how much of an error this actually is though. I last week I verified your result of holding forward to pass through and release to get blocked. I verified it both on the Genesis version and one of the Arcade version, think it was the 3-player version. So maybe it was meant to be like this? Anyways. Good work on finding out the mechanism behind the roll-attack. Did you get any further on the run?