Posted: 11/5/2012 1:06 PM
Post subject: Space Invaders
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TASeditor
Editor, Skilled player (1536)
Joined: 7/9/2010
Posts: 1319
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Space Invaders have different types of levels. They're mostly the same, they only vary in difficulty and two players. On the very left and right side there are regions which aren't possible to reach. So the enemies in the outer left side cannot be killed as first. They need to be killed at least as second. The enemies move faster if they got killed. This table shows the probably fastest way to kill all enemies. The numbers are the periods in which the enemies are killed. Number 7 will move to the left. 
2 1 3 4 5 7
2 1 3 4 5 7
2 1 3 4 5 6
2 1 3 4 5 6
2 1 3 4 5 6
2 1 3 4 5 6
This way is obviously slower. It also doesn't work due the fact that there is this area where enemies can't be hit. 
7 6 6 6 6 7
5 5 5 5 5 5
4 4 4 4 4 4
3 3 3 3 3 3
2 2 2 2 2 2
1 1 1 1 1 1
Anyway, according to my calculations, a highest score run would take about 5 minutes.
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Posted: 12/27/2021 11:22 PM
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KiwiCracker
Editor, Active player (268)
Joined: 3/29/2020
Posts: 51
Location: Europe
Hey, time to revive this 9 year old thread! I got some free time on my hands, and played around with the current movie a bit and discovered a usefull tech (which is well known actually...)! When toggling the difficulty-switch, the lazer cannon (=player) changes its size! This alone probably wouldn't change much for us though, but the important part is, that the cannon isn't centered at the middle (where the lazer-shots come from), but at the very left of the sprite, thus pushing the lazer-shot-origin slightly to the right when expanding - which turns out to be very powerfull :) I made a movie with this knowledge, but instead of using the
TASeditor wrote:
probably fastest way
, i had more luck / got better results with the
TASeditor wrote:
obviously slower
strategy ;) To be fair though, i didn't exhaustively look into both ways to approach this. So I encourage others/you to test these and other strategies if they/you feel like it! That being said, my movie seems pretty improvable to me tbh... since it's quite chaotic and idk which of the strategies TASeditor presented actually is faster. The "probably fastest" one seems good, since managing the time between shots is better doable, but on the other hand the distance between the player and the invaders never becomes as short as in the "obviously slower" version... My guess is, that some sort of a mix of both strategies is probably winning. I'm thinking of maybe something along these lines: 
8 7 7 7 7 8
2 1 3 4 5 6
2 1 3 4 5 6
2 1 3 4 5 6
2 1 3 4 5 6
2 1 3 4 5 6
(Don't take the numbering too seriously, it's just an outline of what i have in mind.) This would allow for a faster descent of the invaders, while being able to manage the time in between shots better. OR i'm totally mistaken here, which might also be the case. I guess someone needs to try, to see if this is any good. I think a good way to aproach this, is to first test which sequence of shooting the invaders in one column (with or without the uppermost one) is the fastest way of dealing with them (assuming there is a concrete fastest sequence). Since I do have these improvements in mind, i won't yet submit my run as long as someone else or i haven't tried different strategies (like the ones suggested in this thread). I doubt I'll work on it the next days though, so until progress is made another 9 years might elapse, if no one else picks this up. I'd also love to see some other game modes of this game TASed! Especially modes 1-8, 33-40 and 49-56 seem to be interesting for for TASing purposes. For reference, look at pages 4, 5 and 7 in this manual. Here is an encode btw: Link to video
Posted: 12/29/2021 2:28 AM
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nymx
He/Him
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Joined: 11/14/2014
Posts: 932
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This cut is amazing. I once thought of looking into further improvements, after Alyosha last submitted it. The difference in strategy is more like I would have tried, since clearing all the aliens out in a row, only makes them drop slower. Having the outside rows remain is excellent and allows faster shooting.
I recently discovered that if you haven't reached a level of frustration with TASing any game, then you haven't done your due diligence. ---- SOYZA: Are you playing a game? NYMX: I'm not playing a game, I'm TASing. SOYZA: Oh...so its not a game...Its for real? ---- Anybody got a Quantum computer I can borrow for 20 minutes? Nevermind...eien's 64 core machine will do. :) ---- BOTing will be the end of all games. --NYMX