Topic by Highness

Posted: 4/28/2006 8:53 PM

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Highness

Player (70)

Joined: 8/24/2004
Posts: 2562
Location: Sweden

Because some times I forget about it, like this time. And it's annoying to re-watch the entire run over and over again.

Posted: 4/28/2006 9:29 PM

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DeHackEd

Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Former player

Joined: 11/6/2004
Posts: 833

You can make save-state anchored movies using Savestateify -- just feed it your full SMV and a savestate file from that movie. It'll spit out a movie file that starts at the savestate. If you're good with hexediting, use the resulting movie as your new starting point. This might make snes9x more responsive if you notice it getting slower as your movie gets longer (not having made a movie of this length, I can't comment).

Posted: 5/2/2006 12:55 PM

Post subject: Sketch Glitch

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Catastrophe

Joined: 11/17/2005
Posts: 278
Location: Massachusetts, USA

Thank you for the offers! I'll use savestateify and email the save states as soon as I finish the cave to the sealed gate. The sktech glitch looks like it is going to be a pain to set up. I said before that the glitch requires one of a several spells in position 28/54 in a character's list of spells. The problem is that I can't seem to get any spell arranged into that slot without taking the time to learn at least a dozen others first. I've figured this much out about the spell sorting. There are 3 lists: white (length 9), black (length 24), and grey (length 21). Your spell list appears as a pair of columns although it is really a one-dimensional list. Each of the three groups are appended to each other in the order that you specify in the config menu. Within each of the groups there is a natural order of spells. For example white is: Cure, Cure2, Cure3, Life, Life2, Antdot, Remedy, Regen, then Life3. If a character knows only Cure and Antdot then their white section will be: Cure, (blank), (), (), (), Antdot, (), (), (). If that was all there was to it then I'd be done. Mute is free to learn and can be positioned perfectly with the order BGW. (24 black spells, grey spell 5/21.) Unfortunately this game has a nifty feature that auto-arranges your spell list. The designers knew that scrolling through 54 blank spaces for 8 spells was dumb idea. But they probably also thought that players would learn to navigate the menu by using spatial relationships. (For example: Doom is located one row below your level 2 magic.) So they didn't want a solution as simple as removing all the blank spaces. What the game actually does seems to be unpredictable. At first I thought that the game was simply removing large groups of blanks in groups of three. Then I thought that the game was somehow required to never shrink any of the three lists below 12 items. Then I thought that blank spells were removed one at a time from blocks of four items to a minimum of 2 blanks per four slots. Nope. (Slots are never actually deleted. Blank slots just get sent to the bottom below your last spell or blank space. I've sorted my list with grey last and still had 8 blanks after Dispel which should always be at the very bottom.) I noticed that a lone Bio spell was arranged differently from a lone Fire spell. I noticed that Cure 2 could be sorted into the first position if Cure was not learned first but this was not true for Antdot. I almost gave up when I sorted my list GWB and recieved "() () Sleep Cure (rest blank)" at the top of my list. What I think the game is doing is looking specifically for certain spells and triggering blank spaces around them if nearby spells are not learned. For example the four consecutive spells "Fire3, Ice3, Bolt3, Flare" always seem to dissapear as a group when none of them are present. I'm afraid that the real logic is something like "Send the four spells Fire2 Ice2 Bolt2 Bio to the bottom if they are all not learned, else keep all of them in their current position as blanks unless just Bio is learned, then send the first two blanks to the bottom." The best I've ever done is one Bio spell in slot 18. By teaching someone pretty much every spell available I can get either Muddle or Mute into position 28 but I can't do it without tons of other spells. I'm thinking of not doing the sketch glitch since it takes so long to set up. I can beat the game without it and I have fast strategies for the rest of the bosses anyway. How dissapointing would it be if I didn't use the sketch glitch? And is it worth me wasting half an hour on Triangle Island for?

Posted: 5/2/2006 2:17 PM

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erokky

Former player

Joined: 4/6/2006
Posts: 462

I just defeated Number 024. I never though I could be moving along this quickly, while still maintaining the quality =D.

Posted: 5/2/2006 5:35 PM

Post subject: Re: Sketch Glitch

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Ozmodiar

Joined: 8/2/2004
Posts: 98

Catastrophe wrote:

The best I've ever done is one Bio spell in slot 18. By teaching someone pretty much every spell available I can get either Muddle or Mute into position 28 but I can't do it without tons of other spells. I'm thinking of not doing the sketch glitch since it takes so long to set up. I can beat the game without it and I have fast strategies for the rest of the bosses anyway. How dissapointing would it be if I didn't use the sketch glitch? And is it worth me wasting half an hour on Triangle Island for?

It'd be pretty disappointing, but I don't think it's worth watching a half-hour of levelling. As long as you keep up the quality that's been seen so far, it might actually be more interesting to see it not be used. Then again, it'll be damn entertaining either way.. I mean, what's a half-hour? It can be turbo'd through anyway.

-Oz. If practice makes perfect, but nobody's perfect, why practice?

Posted: 5/2/2006 5:59 PM

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Paused

Joined: 5/9/2005
Posts: 748

This may be a silly sugestion, as I do not know the game that well. However could you not instead of leveling up for half an hour, which would be dull to watch, do some other side quests? Getting your characters back for example, or killing those optional, dragons was it? It would take more time I presume, but this run has sacrificed speed for entertainment before. Just a thought.

Posted: 5/2/2006 6:44 PM

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Nitrodon

Active player (283)

Joined: 3/4/2006
Posts: 341

From looking at the ROM disassembly, it seems that the magic list works by deleting spaces 1,2,3 if unlearned, followed by 4,5,6 if unlearned and so forth. If this is indeed the case, the shortest path I can see to set up the sketch glitch takes 91 magic points. This number is reduced to 77 if you replace Kirin with Sraphim, but that may not be worth it. Kirin (learn all spells except Cure 2) Siren (learn all spells) Stray (learn Muddle, Imp) Shoat (learn Bio, Break) If I worked this out right, just change to a black-last order after learning these spells and Break will be in position 28 as desired.

Posted: 5/2/2006 6:55 PM
(Edited: 5/12/2006 2:48 AM)

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erokky

Former player

Joined: 4/6/2006
Posts: 462

Whole minecart sequence complete. Went MUCH better than I wished =). Like Catastrophe, I was going to wait until the WOB but it seems you guys are more interested than I thought, so here's a treat. <link no available here> Thanks to flaggy for hosting the file. Please enjoy. Edit: BTW, please post your thoughts or comments about my run. I'd love feedback.

Posted: 5/2/2006 10:03 PM

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Ozmodiar

Joined: 8/2/2004
Posts: 98

The best part about that is, I think, the showcasing of the different DAs. Other things I liked was that, even though Catastrophe's methods looked like the best, you seemed to do it with equal efficiency, even though it was different. Bravo!

-Oz. If practice makes perfect, but nobody's perfect, why practice?

Posted: 5/3/2006 12:37 AM

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Simon

Joined: 1/1/2006
Posts: 6

Paused wrote:

This may be a silly sugestion, as I do not know the game that well. However could you not instead of leveling up for half an hour, which would be dull to watch, do some other side quests? Getting your characters back for example, or killing those optional, dragons was it? It would take more time I presume, but this run has sacrificed speed for entertainment before. Just a thought.

This is a good suggestion. We have what appear to be two fantastic runs going on at the same time, and it seems clear that Erim isn't going to be going for the wacky glitches or unnecessary delays. There's room for some deviation. I know it would be adding more work to an already massive and taxing job you've taken on, so I understand if you'd rather not. But I'd be interested in seeing you blow through the Phoenix Cave or Wrexsoul, with the added bonus of these extra levels pushing you ever closer to a climactic sketch glitch.

Posted: 5/3/2006 12:52 AM

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flagitious

Player (200)

Joined: 7/6/2004
Posts: 511

Ozmodiar: its not exactly "equal efficiency." Erim saves alot of time in places by aiming for pure speed, such as not getting the chain saw, or killing 024 super fast. This is not so say catastrophe's run is bad, I think he is aiming more for entertainment than speed, although when I watch both they both look perfect to me.

g,o,p,i=1e4,a[10001];main(x){for(;p?g=g/x*p+a[p]*i+2*!o: 53^(printf("%.4d",o+g/i),p=i,o=g%i);a[p--]=g%x)x=p*2-1;}

Posted: 5/3/2006 2:30 AM

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Zurreco

Former player

Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 2687
Location: Seattle, WA

What ROM does your run use? I'm using Final Fantasy III (U) (V1.0) [!] and it's giving me a bad checksum.

hi nitrodon streamline: cyn-chine

Posted: 5/3/2006 2:34 AM

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erokky

Former player

Joined: 4/6/2006
Posts: 462

Any version of the ROM is fine. It will not desync unless the Sketch Glitch is used(I believe that's the only difference between the two versions). I use 1.1 though, if you should know.

Posted: 5/3/2006 2:37 AM

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Nitrodon

Active player (283)

Joined: 3/4/2006
Posts: 341

Version 1.0 desynchs in Banon's scenario while trying to run away from a Leafer.

Posted: 5/3/2006 2:42 AM

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erokky

Former player

Joined: 4/6/2006
Posts: 462

It runs fine for me. Excuse me for asking, since you probably do know better, but are you running it on snes9x 1.43+ v9? I don't know what could be the problem if you are. Just make sure the top 3 boxes are ticked though when you're about to play the movie.

Posted: 5/3/2006 3:30 AM

Post subject: Speed

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Catastrophe

Joined: 11/17/2005
Posts: 278
Location: Massachusetts, USA

No, actually, I was going for super-fastest speed ever. :( I still am. Excluding that one moment I took Locke's alternate outfit I've been looking for advantages the whole way. That's why I calculated the precise time I 'wasted' with the glitch. Even with Kutan the plan was to attempt to glitch some equipment onto her. I also plan on counting the precise number of frames that Kutan loses me in the WOR by rewinding. I'll rewind, get Celes, and count the frames to the end of the scenario (still using the Thunder Rod). Then in the WOR I'll equip SS+CB and count the frames from the raft scene to the moment Edgar joins. The difference is what Kutan costs. That way I can find out what my final time would have been. I don't know how but I still want to be faster than Erim. I also want the sketch glitch to overflow and mess up the script scheduled to run after the Air Force. ;) Just drop me right into Kefka's tower instead on the FC. C'mon, please? But sadly the Air Force is perfect monster to use the SC on. I've done it numerous times and each time the background gets a little messed up but is immediately fixed since it is scrolling. I then get tons of awesome items and there are no side effects what-so-ever. I really wish I could start a sequence breaker with a side effect or at least a hillarious graphical mess up because it looks like nothing happens. (It also looks like a cheat code.) Sketch on Ultros 4 gives me, amoung other things, Leo with rage and float, a re-encounter to the same battle, and a crash. That, is a glitch. :) Nitrodon: Thank you so much! I was just looking at assassin17's commented assembly and I got all the way through the file without finding anything of intrest. Did I look too fast or did you open a debugger? Either way I owe you one, two if you spent time debugging just for this. Now "() () Sleep Cure" makes sense - Sleep is last in it's block of three. Now the problem is where to use the sketch glitch. No amount of extra questing means extra AP since it's always faster to 'dodge' the random encounters anyway. I'll figure something out. I just occured to me that I might be able to get random values in $20FF by leaving my party's leader blank. Maybe?

Posted: 5/3/2006 3:45 AM

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Nitrodon

Active player (283)

Joined: 3/4/2006
Posts: 341

Erim: The desynch only happens in 1.0. With version 1.1, I am currently watching at the opera scene with no desynch. Catastrophe: I used Geiger's Snes9x debugger to find out which routine populated the spell list, then stepped through that routine while looking at a copy of the disassembly. If you want to look through it, the entire routine is at $C2/5551-568C, and the part that removes these blank spaces is at $C2/55ED-561C. If the first character does not exist, then the entire spell list will be initialized to FF.

Posted: 5/3/2006 6:55 AM

Post subject: Trial

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Catastrophe

Joined: 11/17/2005
Posts: 278
Location: Massachusetts, USA

I've never looked at SNES (65816) assembly before. But I used to be familiar with 80?86 assembly. The '?' is the last digit of your party's GP. ;) But all of the instructions in this loop were easy anyway. For just the loop at c2/55f0-561c I made commented assembly and I re-wrote the same thing in C just to prove to myself how it worked. And Nitrodon was exactly right. :) I was hoping that there would be something strange or exploitable, but no. Each of the three lists have lengths that are divisble by 3 (9, 21, 24) so there is never an odd-slot out. I need 9 spells to fill up 27 slots and a 10th spell to be the 28th. I could speed up the end of Siren a bit by switching to Bismark. (Haha! A use Bismark!) Sraphim probably isn't worth it. I suspect that Cure, Antdot, Regen, Fire, Break, Bio, Mute, Muddle, Imp, and Break are the way to go after all. But let me see if Shiva's x5 Ice 2 can replace x4 Antdot or x5 Regen. Maybe the magic points gained on the minecart are nothing compared to having Terra start with Cure, Antdot, and Fire already? If so, I actually have a use for the x4 Rasp and Osmose. ---------------------------------- Cure, Cure 2, (Cure 3) Life, (Life 2), Antdot Remedy, Regen, (Life 3) ---------------------------------- Fire, Ice, Bolt Poison, Drain, Fire 2 Ice2, Bolt 2, Bio (Fire 3), (Ice 3), (Bolt 3) Break, Doom, (Pearl) (Flare), Demi, (Quartr) (X-Zone), (Meteor), (Ultima) (Quake), (W.Wind), (Merton) ---------------------------------- Scan, Slow, Rasp Mute, Safe, Sleep Muddle, Haste, (Stop) Bserk, Float, Imp Rflect, Shell, Vanish (Haste2), (Slow2), Osmose Warp, (Quick), Dispel ---------------------------------- If Terra skips Kirin she can use her natural Cure + Antdot for two rows. If she hits level 12, which she will automatically if I use her for the glitch, then her natural Drain will account for another row. Natural Fire is a 4th row. She learns Bio and Break from Shoat for rows 5 and 6. If only Ice 2 weren't in the same group as Bio I'd be all set since I get Ice 2 for free while learning Rasp and Osmose at x4. It is also a tragedy that you get Sleep for free with Mute. Both spells have really high rates on the same esper. Slow, Mute, Muddle, and Imp fill the last 4 four rows and set up Break like before. I need to go to bed....

Posted: 5/3/2006 9:57 PM

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Ozmodiar

Joined: 8/2/2004
Posts: 98

flagitious wrote:

Ozmodiar: its not exactly "equal efficiency." Erim saves alot of time in places by aiming for pure speed, such as not getting the chain saw, or killing 024 super fast. This is not so say catastrophe's run is bad, I think he is aiming more for entertainment than speed, although when I watch both they both look perfect to me.

Hence "seems". It looks neither faster nor slower (probably because different things are being done), and still gets the job done while being a visual treat. I struggled to find adequate wording, and seemingly failed.

-Oz. If practice makes perfect, but nobody's perfect, why practice?

Posted: 5/3/2006 9:58 PM

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Highness

Player (70)

Joined: 8/24/2004
Posts: 2562
Location: Sweden

I might smell a star-vote uppon completion of this run! :D

Posted: 5/3/2006 9:58 PM

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Ozmodiar

Joined: 8/2/2004
Posts: 98

Zurreco wrote:

What ROM does your run use? I'm using Final Fantasy III (U) (V1.0) [!] and it's giving me a bad checksum.

Just confirming that Final Fantasy III (U) (V1.1) [!] has the correct checksum and indeed works.

-Oz. If practice makes perfect, but nobody's perfect, why practice?

Posted: 5/4/2006 4:16 AM

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SaxxonPike

Any

Joined: 6/8/2005
Posts: 236
Location: Madison, Wisconsin

A bit off-topic here, but flagitious, what does that horrifying C code in your sig do?

Music - https://www.sanxion7.com Code - https://github.com/SaxxonPike

Posted: 5/4/2006 5:57 AM

Post subject: Plan

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Catastrophe

Joined: 11/17/2005
Posts: 278
Location: Massachusetts, USA

Remedy(3), Regen ---------------------------------- Ice2, Bolt 2, Bio(8) Break(5), Doom Demi(5) ---------------------------------- Scan, Slow(7), Rasp(4) Mute(8), Safe, Sleep(10) Muddle(7), Haste(3) Bserk(3), Float, Imp(5) Rflect(5), Shell, Vanish(3) Osmose(4) Warp, Dispel(4) ---------------------------------- (Warning: Magic Points = AP, because MP = mana.) This is a chart I made to help myself visualize which rows are the most attractive to Terra. I need to pick 6 of these. The single best deal is 15 AP to complete two rows with Slow and Mute. The other 4 rows are debatable. Both Shoat and Stray will knock off two rows each for a mere 20 AP. Since I have to drag Terra though Thamasa Island anyway giving Terra 55 AP is a lot more reasonable. But there is another possibility. Getting Zoneseek might take me a full minute, but I'd have to fight far fewer battles. Zoneseek will teach me Rasp and Osmose at a whopping 20x each! So for just 5 AP I can clear two rows! Next, Stray and Shoat still knock off their two rows each for the same 40 AP. Now Terra only needs 45 AP! Saving 10 AP means fighting 5 fewer battles, approximately. That more than pays for Zoneseek's minute. Buying Zoneseek is also definitely faster than trying to encounter Intangirs that I can't even kill anyway. Learning 3 spells from Zoneseek for 20 AP requires me to learn exactly one spell from someone else, which surprisingly does not save AP anywhere. Giving Terra Rasp and 5-20 AP before FlameEater ensures that it will be a killed in hit. That saves me alot of time in picking up the Ice Rod and buying more. The creeps on the second half of the Floating Continent will also die to Rasp or Osmose. In the meantime, anyone can learn Vanish from scratch since it takes 34 AP and Terra needs 45. Edgar is my appointed vanisher since Setzer will lead a different team in Kefka's tower. (Vanish/Snare for one team, Joker Doom on the other two.) Edgar already knows half of Vanish so it won't even be bad if Terra fights the best 3 AP formations on Thamasa. On the Floating Continent I'll take Terra, Edgar/Setzer, and Relm. Ultros 4 (and 3) are as good as done even without the expensive Doom spell. After I do the sketch glitch I'll have Terra throw a Flame Shld at the Air Force. After that the rest of the game is almost linear until I win. The only choice I'll have to make is taking Sabin so that he can put on the SS+CB. I'll just test "Celes", "Sabin", and "Kutan" routes to Figaro castle and report my times.

Posted: 5/4/2006 8:10 AM

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Highness

Player (70)

Joined: 8/24/2004
Posts: 2562
Location: Sweden

Does one need to learn the entire spell in order for this to work? Because I remember that it will show a percentage on how far you have leveled your magic. That won't do eh?

Posted: 5/4/2006 9:09 AM

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LagDotCom

Joined: 3/7/2006
Posts: 720
Location: UK

SaxxonPike wrote:

A bit off-topic here, but flagitious, what does that horrifying C code in your sig do?

It prints pi to a fair few places. As for the run, great work! One question so far for Erim; isn't it slower to wait for the Doom Fist part of the Vargas battle to blow over than to skip it like Catastrophe did?

Voted NO for NO reason