Skilled player (1444)
Joined: 7/15/2007
Posts: 1468
Location: Sweden
applepieman wrote:
and it kills the boss extremely fast.
Well, not faster than other weapons.
applepieman wrote:
As for enemies behind you, why not just jump in the air and do a quick shot behind you and then switch back to going forward?
Because it wastes time.
Agare Bagare Kopparslagare
Former player
Joined: 10/6/2007
Posts: 86
Wouldn't it be faster to hop inside the Miniboss (the trolley on the rails) than run the entire length of the rail area?
Skilled player (1444)
Joined: 7/15/2007
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Location: Sweden
Atma already brought that up, and I didn't know about it and I'm going to test it.
Agare Bagare Kopparslagare
Skilled player (1444)
Joined: 7/15/2007
Posts: 1468
Location: Sweden
Okay, I'm done polishing up the first stage now. I saved 5 frames in the first half from optimization, and 3 frames or so on the boss, and 208 frames (I think) from taking the rail car, so it's almost 4 seconds faster now. Anything else that still looks wrong? And I'm probably going to post a WIP here after every stage to avoid making more mistakes like the one in the first level. Dsm Avi
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Player (68)
Joined: 3/11/2004
Posts: 1058
Location: Reykjaví­k, Ísland
Were you trying to shoot in sync with the music? At 0:39 it was kinda neat for a split second. All I can say is fantastic job! I kinda wish you didn't miss any shots at all ever, but that's probably impossible without wasting some time, especially with the spread gun.
Skilled player (1444)
Joined: 7/15/2007
Posts: 1468
Location: Sweden
Blublu wrote:
Were you trying to shoot in sync with the music? At 0:39 it was kinda neat for a split second.
Nah, that's coincidental.
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Former player
Joined: 10/6/2007
Posts: 86
Nice work. Can't wait to see some more levels.
Skilled player (1444)
Joined: 7/15/2007
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Location: Sweden
Level 2 done. I'm quite happy with how it turned out in terms of speed, as in I had to wait a lot less for moving platforms than I feared that I might. Not too much to say about the boss battle, except that all missed half shots where missed because avoiding to do so would take time, and there are not that many either. And besides that, it all went smooth. Now on the choice of weapons. I thought about this for some time and tested some stuff, and came to the conclusion that the machine gun and the crush missiles would be the best picks. Laser would have been faster on the boss because he is so big that he get hit 4 times per shot, but it would be slower on the smaller enemies before the boss, and in level 3 as well. I think that the flamethrower would have been slightly faster overall on the boss and the enemies before him, but only by a small amount, and upgrading it would make me waste some frames picking it up, and it is also completely worthless on level 3. Crush was collected since it is pretty important to have in level 3, where it speeds up things a lot, but the machine gun will still be faster in some places, which is the main point that makes it a better pick than the flamethrower. Dsm Avi The missing white space on the screen becomes pretty annoying here since most of the level is vertical scrolling, but I don't know how to keep it in there when recording.
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Former player
Joined: 10/6/2007
Posts: 86
Damn that was fast (and I actually completed all 40 challenges(with some of them being speed runs with tight time). THe Crush Missles will be extremely effective against the Submarine mini-boss in the 4th stage.
Former player
Joined: 9/1/2005
Posts: 803
Huh, I forgot to reply to this. Level 2 looks damn fucking good. The only thing I wonder is was it faster overall damage wise to use the machine gun on the boss as opposed to crush missiles? The damage output by crush varies, but it's definitely higher than the machine gun overall. Other than that, yeah. Shit's awesome, keep going.
Joined: 3/16/2006
Posts: 289
I was wondering the same thing. The fight was extremely fast, but would the Crush Missiles be any faster? I also kinda wonder if Contra 3's rapid-weapon switch glitch is still here? Like each weapon can only have X number of shots on screen, so you collect say two Crush Missiles and fire one bunch and then switch to the other gun while the 1st is "reloading". Fire, switch, repeat.
I am just a silhouette, a silhouette of a memory of a solitary night .. nothing more.
Skilled player (1444)
Joined: 7/15/2007
Posts: 1468
Location: Sweden
Yes, it is faster to use the machine gun. Crush does a maximum of 5 damage, and you have to wait 11 frames between each shot, machine gun does 2 damage per bullet (well 1 but they go in pairs), and you have to wait 4 frames between each shot, so the rate of fire of Crush relative to the machine gun is 4/11 = 0,364. 0,364*5 = 1.82. That's how I figured it anyway. And Crush is also very unreliable, it doesn't always do 5 damage, so I would have to wait frames between each shot, making the rate of fire even worse. In level 3 though, it is great because of the splash damage. EDIT: Forgot. Switching weapons back and forth won't do any good in this game. The cooldown from your last fired bullet carries over when you switch weapons, and you can't ever reach cap after which you have to wait for bullets to get off screen before continuing to shoot.
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Skilled player (1444)
Joined: 7/15/2007
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Location: Sweden
Level 3 done. It was pretty straightforward, though it did take some careful movement to destroy all the barriers as fast as possible. Crush works best on this boss because for some reason it does twice its normal damage. And the time it takes for the barriers to get vulnerable seems to be predetermined, because I was not able to manipulate it. Dsm Avi
Agare Bagare Kopparslagare
Joined: 3/25/2008
Posts: 64
Nice work, those 3D tunnel levels are pretty boring, but still- nice work.
.II
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Cpadolf wrote:
Crush does a maximum of 5 damage, and you have to wait 11 frames between each shot, machine gun does 2 damage per bullet (well 1 but they go in pairs), and you have to wait 4 frames between each shot, so the rate of fire of Crush relative to the machine gun is 4/11 = 0,364. 0,364*5 = 1.82.
If you're going to count it, count the whole cycles (i.e., the amount of frames you need to wait + one frame to press a button). If I understand what you're saying, then it's 5 damage over 12 frames (~25 dps) for crush and 2 damage over 5 frames (24 dps) for machine gun, which makes crush missiles win in the end as long as 5 damage output is consistent and you switch to machine gun for finishing shots. The WIP is looking great, although I have to admit this is one boring game to see TASed compared to the franchise's earlier incarnations.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Skilled player (1444)
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Location: Sweden
moozooh wrote:
If you're going to count it, count the whole cycles (i.e., the amount of frames you need to wait + one frame to press a button). If I understand what you're saying, then it's 5 damage over 12 frames (~25 dps) for crush and 2 damage over 5 frames (24 dps) for machine gun, which makes crush missiles win in the end as long as 5 damage output is consistent and you switch to machine gun for finishing shots.
Hmm, you might be right about that. But it still is slower to use it against the boss, because of it not doing 5 damage all the time (sometimes it even only does 3), and if you lower the rate of fire by even half a frame the dps goes down to 24.
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Skilled player (1444)
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Level 4 done. Some notes: In some of the jumps on the railings I do one frame without horizontal movement, this is necessary to avoid overshooting some jumps, which would have killed me. Some of the earlier cannons on the sub could probably be destroyed a little quicker with better optimization, but it doesn't make a difference as the movement of the sub doesn't change depending on what cannons you have destroyed, and you can't proceed until all are destroyed. Boss at the rocket. For some reason Crush is more damage effective on this guy than on most other bosses/enemies, even though he doesn't have multiple parts, therefore I mainly use Crush on that fight. The amount of machine gun bullets I shoot before starting with Crush might seem somewhat arbitrary, but I tested all combinations and this turned out to be the fastest. Boss at the end. Crush is the best weapon by far on his arms, since there are many parts that all get damage (and they seem to share hp). I went head on with the second fist and won by a few inches :) Dsm Avi Oh, and the top screen graphics doesn't seem to get drawn correctly on level 5 (though it's only the background, so it doesn't hinder gameplay), is that just on my computer or is it a flaw in the emulator?
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Player (68)
Joined: 3/11/2004
Posts: 1058
Location: Reykjaví­k, Ísland
Level 3: Holy crap. That looked ridiculously efficient. Awesome! Level 4: Again, I can't see a single thing that I could add. Super-good job.
Joined: 7/1/2008
Posts: 272
there's a shortcut you missed. at 1:09, you can jump directly to the ladder on the right. check here for reference.
Skilled player (1444)
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Location: Sweden
Ah, I see. Thanks.
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Skilled player (1444)
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Location: Sweden
So, I spent 5-6 hours reworking the end of stage 2 due to a mistake, as well as stage 3 completely due to different Crush behaviour brought on by the improvement, saving 20 frames in the end. Then along comes zggzdydp with a WIP of stage 1-2, which while still slower than mine (he had not been able to watch it) included a few things I had missed, and also made me realize a change in weapon planning was for the best. Anyawy, now we are working on this together, starting over yet again from stage two. But hopefully, when it is done it will at least be very optimal :)
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Former player
Joined: 10/6/2007
Posts: 86
Very nice work, can't wait for the submitted run.
Former player
Joined: 5/22/2004
Posts: 462
I'm also excited for this run. Quick question (sorry if it's been answered): are you playing on easy, normal, or hard? (I still can't beat this game on hard.... )
Sir_VG
He/Him
Player (40)
Joined: 10/9/2004
Posts: 1913
Location: Floating Tower
Dan_ wrote:
I'm also excited for this run. Quick question (sorry if it's been answered): are you playing on easy, normal, or hard? (I still can't beat this game on hard.... )
...this is a Contra game. The rule of Contra speed running is you play it on Hard.
Taking over the world, one game at a time. Currently TASing: Nothing