Halamantariel, could you please repost your movie files on that site (http://halamantariel.homeip.net/speedruns)? Or anyone else that have the files for that matter. That site seems to be down.
I'm interested in this and would like to learn some things from movie files posted in this thread. Just wanted to experiment with Uniracers.
Hmm.. yeah sorry, my bad.
My router was reset recently, and I forgot to re-redirect the ports for the web server! :D Sorry for that.
I deleted the movies for Uniracers from my site anyways. Even if they were still there, I doubt you would have learned anything, since I only did the first race. It was fairly normal, nothing special ...
What I would suggest you is to try it for yourself. Try to get the time I mentionned that I got earlier in this thread, and when you do get it, you will have learned everything that I learned from that game.
I didn't do much with it really. You're better off on your own than waiting for someone who has my movie.
Awe. Alright, thanks for insight. I just wanted to know what is optimal speed on long straight tracks, so I played first course quite a few times. When I didn't get satisfactory results, I started researching around a little and found this thread.
I guess I'll just keep playing and experimenting! :)
AFAIR, there were two ways to speed up on the straight way: high jump + roll + twist or short jump + twist (which, I think, is more suitable with frame advance). I played this game pretty well back then on my SNES, but I've forgot all the tracks since those times� A perfect TAS for this game will be extremely interesting, but hard� I'm afraid, just TOO hard to accomplish (the game's pretty long as well).
Edit: On a second thought, I may have overestimated the difficulty of this run. If anyone is feeling he could do it, I'll try to help.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
I found the movie Halamantariel had, and put it here. It doesn't look like anything special since it's just one track that's completely flat, but I think that was it.
I confirm this was the video I did. This is the fastest time possible for the first track.
The trick is NOT in the various stunts you make. The uniracer has a top speed, it won't go any faster than this, so whatever tricks you make, the speed will always be the same (as long as you keep doing tricks, that is).
The trick to get that 25.07 instead of 25.08 was to find a way to end the track with the uniracer as far to the right of the screen as possible. I managed to do this by missing a stunt or two. You'll understand when you watch the movie.
Thanks Nitsuja!
I hate to double-post, but since the last post is more than a year old, I figured it wouldn't matter.
I've picked up interest in this game again. I feel that I've played it enough when I was young to be able to deliver a good TAS for you guys. Therefore, I re-did the first track to see if I could get that 25.07 again, and I did fairly easily. I'm quite confident that I know the game enough.
That being said, I just read something on SDA (about a year-and-a-half old). Someone claims to have gotten a 24.95 for the first track. He even says that he thinks 24.77 is possible. He describes his strategy like this:
To do a flip twist first of all you need to tap left, jump quickly 'flip' with R and twist. Immediatly after hitting the ground, repeat so that you don't get the speed boost you normally do after doing tricks. You can do this many times in a row, but it's tough to not lose speed on the left tap. This will 'store' the boost and give you a much larger one. With this larger boost, you can fly off the screen and finish before the screen can catch up and finish before the normal time it takes to finish a course.
So he's talking about "storing boosts". That's an immensely interesting thing for a TAS, isn't it? I've tried all I could tonight to replicate what he's talking about, but all I get is the same old 25.07 again.
I was wondering if some of you guys could give it a try, just in case this happens to be true. This technique would definitely push me into making this TAS come to life.
EDIT:
Holy Crap!!! http://gamesource.groups.yahoo.com/group/uniracers/message/32
This guy claims to have RECORDED a 24.68!!!
And that board seems to have some GREAT times to beat in the TAS. This is gonna be awesome!
EDIT2:
Nevermind guys ... Youtube has all the best times. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEp9T0daxlw
That's the first track in a whopping 24.45!!
I knew I got below 25.07.
To do roll plus twist I would tap left right in the air while holding R. To do flip plus twise, better, I would do the same but release R before landing so that you land perfectly at a 45* angle, or whatever the angle is when your moving on the ground. Or I would release jump at some point so you jump lower, I suppose this would be faster.
You could try my technique and see if that works, I know it gets you flip + twist.
With a TAS you might able to do Z-flip or a table top, even maybe head bounce idk, I might try a little.
"Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence."
* UPDATE *
Progress has now officially started for this run. The first track is done, thank to the help of Moozooh, Nitrodon and that movie on youtube that got a 24.45 time for the track. Moozooh found the memory addresses for X position, Y position and Speed; Nitrodon found the memory address where the boost is stored. Using these addresses, I was able to get a maximum speed and maintain it while I "charged" the boost meter.
Here's the file: Dragster in 24.18.avi (1.18 Mb) [EDIT: LINK REMOVED]
Enjoy!
I'll get to work on the next track soon. It's going to be a long one though, since it has 3 laps and it's a lot more complicated than a flat track.
I was experiementing and I found roll and twist give you the same boost, doing them both together doesn't seem to add any speed but I think the boost last twice as long. I think Z-flip gives the same or maybe less boost. I couldn't get table top all the time but it doesn't seem to be any faster either. I'm not sure how flip works but I think it's boost is faster and can be stored.
Z-flip or twist is the fastest move, so for the best emediate boost I think it would be as many of one of these as possible. Unless flips are better. Double z-flip or double twist might be better than single flip.
I know for many jumps on uniracers you want to go low or not far and thus have a slower speed at take off, I think this is actually where most of the time can be gained.
"Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence."
* UPDATE *
The first track has been redone, thanks to Nitrodon who has found a new combination of tricks that can be repeated over and over again. Instead of using what is called a TF (Twist/Flip), I now use what I call a TtFT (Tabletop/Flip/Twist).
This new combination of tricks allows for 1 more trick to be inserted into one jump. It means that a bigger boost is stored in memory, and therefore less jumps are necessary to gather all the boost necessary to get to the finish line.
Here's the file: Dragster in 23.56.avi (2.49 Mb)
Enjoy!
The new time, 23.56, is 0,89 seconds faster than the video posted on Youtube (link) which got a time of 24.45 on a console. This means about 53,4 frames. That's how close this dude was to perfection. He's an incredibly skilled Uniracers player, and I wouldn't want to play against him! :)
Does Tabletop+Flip+Twist give a bigger boost than Flip+Z-Flip? What about Flip+Twist+Z-Flip (which can also be done in a normal jump)? That has a good chance of adding "outrageous!"/"gnarly!"/"mondo!"/etc. which I think extends the boost even more.
Also, I thought this game penalizes lack of variety by giving smaller and smaller boosts the more you do the same trick, is that just a myth?
The points are worth this, I think boosts are proportional, expect for maybe table top:
roll 4
twist 4
Z-flip 4
flip 8
table top 4-12 (seems to vary with time held with 4 being very rare and 12 very common)
head bounce 32
note: the table top is the only move which doesn't depreciate.
I wonder if you held your table tops for longer if you’d get a better boost.
Z-flip, flip, twist might better, or the same, but if it's the same and takes a smaller jump it'd be better.
I think if you jump during a boost you keep the speed the whole time your in the air. So maybe it’s faster to get the flip boost and then jump and do the trick again. Or at least jump at the end.
Trick’s points depreciate, I don’t think boosts do. It's half the points each time you do the same trick again. So after you do twister city twice it's twice as many points to do just 3 twists.
"Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence."
By the way, guys, you can join #uniracers on IRC (same server as #nesvideos) and idle there if you want. This is where I discuss strategies and results I get. So if you want the latest news and even participate in the making of this TAS (by discussing it), that's the place to be. It's generally way easier to give information in a live chat than by replying to forum posts. :)
nitsuja wrote:
Does Tabletop+Flip+Twist give a bigger boost than Flip+Z-Flip? What about Flip+Twist+Z-Flip (which can also be done in a normal jump)?
I wonder if you held your table tops for longer if you’d get a better boost.
The boost value seems to be the same whether I hold it for 7 frames or for longer than that. Only the points given from the stunt seem to change, not the boost given.
Spider-Waffle wrote:
I think if you jump during a boost you keep the speed the whole time your in the air. So maybe it’s faster to get the flip boost and then jump and do the trick again. Or at least jump at the end.
Jumping at the end of a boost will keep the speed the whole time I'm in the air, as long as my X position in the screen (7E1509,1u) stays below 175. Most boosts take you further than that, and therefore, the speed will decrease while I'm in the air. Storing the boost definitely is better than using it every jump.
I never actually figured out how much boost a headbounce gives (because I don't know how to do a headbounce), but the 128 you listed on that page is a reasonable assumption. EDIT: It's 152.
If Flip+Twist+Z-flip (432) takes less than 18/19 of the time taken for Tabletop+Flip+Twist (456), then it will turn out to be better.
I would join any IRC channel on gamesurge, but having to connect to two different networks can be a pain.
I think for the stunt tracks you'll want to do a 12 point table top every time you leave the ground besides the head bounces at the begginning and maybe when doing Z-flips if you can't fit the table top in as well.
For the first stunt track I'm pretty sure you can do table top + Z-flip city no problem.
"Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence."
So here's some stuff for stunts points f=flip z=z-flip r=roll 4r= 4 rolls, ect. This is basically the order you'd want to do tricks in with points first, then time as the tie breaker. I stop at the 3f 8 point tricks because a table top is obviously better.
4f 64
3f 32
4f 32
4z 32
4r 32
2f 16
3f 16
3z 16
3r 16
4f 16
4z 16
4r 16
1f 8
2f 8
2z 8
2r 8
3f 8
3z 8
3r 8
1f 4
1z 4
1r 4
Twist go like this:
4t 32
3t 16
4t 16
2t 8
3t 8
4t 8
1t 4
2t 4
3t 4
4t 4
1t 2
2t 2
3t 2
4t 2
1t 1
1t 1
1t 1
.
.
.
For the first stunt track I think your first 13 big moves should look like this.
4f
3f+2z
4f
4z+1f
4r
2f+3z
3f+1r
3z+2r
3r+1z
4f
4z+1f
4r
1f+3r
I'm hopping the z-flips can be combined with flips or rolls in 5s, I think they can be but it's close. You must also be able to do a table top with everyone of these, if you can't that's really bad and something else might have to be done. Note after this point I think it's better to do extra table tops instead of a big jump because you'll get only about 8 points max. Also note this includes everything up to the 8 point tricks except the tripples and one 2f. The 2f could be done with a table top when jumping into the pit.
"Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence."
Thanks for all this detailed information, spider-waffle, but I already knew all that. It's going to be helpful anyway since now I have a clear reference for stunt courses.
* UPDATE *
This time, it's a third of an update. It's about Zoom Zoo (the second track). I've now completed 1 lap, and the time I got was 24.15 seconds. A guy on the Uniracers yahoo group claims to have gotten that exact same time for a lap too, but my guess is that he got it by letting the CPU finish first (which gives a permanent speed boost, enough to warrant about a second of improvement).
Without this handicap, I'd say that he would have gotten about 25.15 instead of 24.15 seconds. Anyway. I got 24.15 on the first lap.
There's an SMV available on my webpage. I'll encode an AVI when the whole track is done.
The end of the lap may change if I can insert some tricks in the last part.
Enjoy!
Zoom Zoo looks pretty good, I can’t imagine anyone doing that well non-TAS.
Some ideas for possible improvements:
I saw you doing rolls and flips in the same air; I guess that was faster than doing all flips?
When doing those things which loop you around the other way why didn’t you do a table top? Also why did you do a roll on the first half loop, can’t you tap backwards and do a flip like in the dragster course. Also after the first half loop you jump and do a roll trick, again why not a flip? Then for the last half loop, maybe you could do the tap backwards and do a flip + tt + z-flip or something.
After the big jump about 1/3 through there’s a patch of green and blue track on a small hill, this is the color code for safe to jump. You can jump near the top of the hill and get a normal jump trick in (tt+f+t). But maybe you lose your big boost or something since your going too far to the right of the screen, how does that work exactly?
After the big jump near the end you can do a small jump near the top of the gold ramp and land a twist or z-flip I believe, but maybe the same problem as the last one exists here too?
I was thinking you might be able to save a little time by jumping when the slope of the track is increasing, like on the big jumps or the loops; just like on sonic.
"Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence."
I saw you doing rolls and flips in the same air; I guess that was faster than doing all flips?
Yeah, look at the boost values table. Each additional consecutive flip — even three of them — won't add as much as a single roll (flip city is 248 boost units, flip+roll is 304).
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Okay, so I guess they just add up for a single value which is all that matters? Wasn't sure if that's how it worked.
"Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence."
When doing those things which loop you around the other way why didn’t you do a table top? Also why did you do a roll on the first half loop, can’t you tap backwards and do a flip like in the dragster course. Also after the first half loop you jump and do a roll trick, again why not a flip?
The first half-loop has been changed now. It's now a TtFT with a small jump doing Tt afterwards. Compared to the "old" one (which was R2T with a small RT afterwards), it gives 608 boost units instead of 536. Not a big time saver, but still saved some time. Good thought. And no, I couldn't do anything more than a simple Tt on the small jump because I didn't have enough room (the bike would bounce on the track and lose speed).
The second half loop can't be done with a tabletop. I mean, sure, I can do a Tt in it, but that would be the only trick done in there. I can't mix it with something else. Therefore, FT is better on the second half-loop (304 instead of 152).
Spider-Waffle wrote:
Then for the last half loop, maybe you could do the tap backwards and do a flip + tt + z-flip or something.
Tapping backwards doesn't work on these halfloops (except for the second one, but don't ask me why only that one works). Also, the trick done on that halfloop has now been changed. Instead of the "old" F2T, I now do a TtFT. I managed to squeeze a Tt in there.
Spider-Waffle wrote:
After the big jump about 1/3 through there’s a patch of green and blue track on a small hill, this is the color code for safe to jump. You can jump near the top of the hill and get a normal jump trick in (tt+f+t). But maybe you lose your big boost or something since your going too far to the right of the screen, how does that work exactly?
I can't do anything on that "safe jump zone". There's not enough room for anything. Not even for a simple twist. The bike would land on the uphill slope and then bounce off the track, therefore losing speed and boost.
Spider-Waffle wrote:
After the big jump near the end you can do a small jump near the top of the gold ramp and land a twist or z-flip I believe, but maybe the same problem as the last one exists here too?
I know that. I did say that "The end of the lap may change if I can insert some tricks in the last part", didn't I?
Spider-Waffle wrote:
I was thinking you might be able to save a little time by jumping when the slope of the track is increasing, like on the big jumps or the loops; just like on sonic.
I’ve found a trick you can do in this game to save lots of time. Well actually I already knew about it but I just found it again and figured out why it works. When there’s a track above you with a change in its slope you can while moving, jump and start to roll to bring your wheel up and if you’re close enough it will warp to the track above. A great place to do this on course mega jump of the second circuit. You do it to warp up to the part right before the big jump, it saves about 2 seconds.
I also found that can warp through those silver things which spin you if you jump and whip out on top of it, it’s inconsistent, but you can fall right through the middle of them.
Also at the part of mega jump where you encounter the first silver spiny thing you can jump over it by landing on it with head first and way in front of you. This puts you into one of those orange safety barriers. You can jump out of it to the left side by doing the head first trick again. Once you fall out of this it’s all crazy, there’s no track you can see but you land on one sometimes eventually you’ll go into a very long free fall and land somewhere near the big jump. You can then see the track and it’s the same but it will go invisible in patches. Obviously this type of trick has huge potential on the right course.
Tapping backwards doesn't work on these halfloops (except for the second one, but don't ask me why only that one works).
You don't have to tap backwards on the second one; it naturally does a flip because it's a left to right half loop. I don't know why the half loops do flips and rolls depending on which way they go. I think we'd need to find the address which tells which way you’re facing to get to the bottom of this.
The first half-loop has been changed now. It's now a TtFT with a small jump doing Tt afterwards. Compared to the "old" one (which was R2T with a small RT afterwards), it gives 608 boost units instead of 536.
So is the second trick smaller now because you get too fast of a boost from the first trick? If so I wonder if you could do a slightly smaller first trick and then do two quick moves in the second one, like a TZ. A good candidate for a slightly smaller first trick would be TfRT.
I can't do anything on that "safe jump zone".
Ya, you’re right, it’s because your going so fast at that point. Otherwise you can.
Assuming you can’t squeeze any better tricks anywhere now I think this is getting close to optimal. Obviously it’d be better if didn’t go left quite as far when changing direction at that one part but that has to be balanced with the speed you get by doing bigger tricks. Maybe that part on the second lap will work out more perfectly.
"Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence."
Actually, scratch that.
After modifying that 1st halfloop jump to get a bigger boost, I was never able to get the 24.15 that I got earlier. All I was able to get was 24.16. this just goes to prove my point that "bigger boosts don't always mean faster time".
A little longer explanation would be that since the boost is bigger, the bike goes further to the left of the screen, to a point where it's too far and therefore loses some speed. Doing R2T and then RT is actually better than TtFT and Tt in this case, because then the bike doesn't lose speed.
So basically, the SMV that I linked earlier is the one that's going to be kept. As I said before though, the end of the lap might change if I can put in a trick near the end.
So yeah ... no modification.
