got all but the two in 5-3. hilariously, my fix for that one affected slot 6 ysub which causes that very last goblin in 6-3 to hit Ryu right before he reaches the exit.
before edit $47e = 0x52
after edit $47e = 0x57
and anything <= 0x56 would be fine.
#637935603246269980 - [NES] Ninja Gaiden Pacifist% resynced for NESHawk with additional entertainment moves at the end
compared to https://tasvideos.org/Userfiles/Info/33669363111907735. Note that the cited movie has unsync'ed unfinalized stages, from 6-01. Regardless of whether that represents a comparative advantage or disadvantage, it is the best reference I can possibly find.
This version features a 15 frame faster kill of Stage 5 boss, and a manually planned (by me) and bot-executed re-route of the entire Stage 6 and last bosses.
The Demon boss is killed pacifist. That is, nothing is harmed except for the heart. To reach it passing the head, Ryu has to take damage. So be it.
Remaining steps:
- Add Entertainment value
- Resync to neshawk core using Scum's tool
- Write submission notes
Note to possible downloaders: if you work hard enough, you'll find plenty of opportunities for optimization. I dare you find them and challenge my submission.
#637934169695732732 - [NES] Ninja Gaiden, 12 Frames ahead on 06-01a
[addendum] so I realized that I was doing things wrong. When you want to obsolete an existing movie AND the game has a globally carried element (global timer, RNG, etc), you should start from the end and go backwards. This way you minimize the amount of resyncing you need to do. If you start from the beginning like I just did, you'll find nothing but frustration. So save yourself from draining all the fun from TASing and try obsoleting movies backwards.
Scum managed to save the full 4 frames passing the tosser in 5-1. These 4 frames were just enough to get us a so-so pattern for the tosser in 5-3, which the bot found a way to pass with -2 frames (compared to published TAS, -1 frame compared to currently submitted TAS).
Now it's a matter of synchronizing the rest of the movie. However, the tosser on 6-1 is proving to be a headache as well... let's see
#637907217589602591 - [NES] Ninja Gaiden, Resync to EmuHawk 2.8
After 6 long years here's a new movie, 1 frame faster than published TAS (actually 3 frames, but two of them are faster boot by the emu)
A lot more work (weeks/months) remains and possibly more frames to be saved (starting from 5-3 onwards), but this is the proof you can expect a new TAS sometime later this year.
This could have not been possible without the invaluable assistance I got from Scumtron since weeks now.
#637899368554231655 - [NES] Ninja Gaiden, 1 frame ahead on 05-02c, with 5 fewer ninpo.
Last few levels of the game. All the frames we had saved were lost in 5-1 due to the impossibly complicated setup. Hope remains and the search goes on tho. I just discovered a way to save 5 ninpo in 5-2b. This extra ninpo might help in saving frames later, e.g.,
5-2a: If we can save 15 ninpo, we can use a tactic to save 1 frame here, where we don't grab the +10 ninpo to setup a -0.5px position and we use the spin slash at the end. It is possible that either the setup or the spin slash isn't necessary tho. 15 is just the upper bound.
5-2c: Seems like the current TAS waits for a frame or two to avoid the football guys, not to waste ninpo in a spin-slash. Now we got the power, perhaps we can outright kill them.
Fingers crossed.
#637897877026083005 - [NES] Ninja Gaiden, Stage 5-1, one frame ahead after passing tosser
I had to sacrifice one frame in the previous' stage boss because of some weird timing effect that added 3 frames to the countdown. Perhaps it passed the second barrier, which, if true, is pretty tragic.
Deja vu. Same situation now in 04-03c, 2 frames and 1 pixel ahead and a ladder skip at the end. Let's see if this time we can capitalize it into a frame.
The published TAS says it sacrifices 1/2px to get a better setup for the ladder. However, I managed to get a full pixel ahead (although with alternating 1/2, 1 patterns). I want to share this file with Scum to see if we can capitalize this into a frame.
This movie achieves a red ninja boss kill 4 frames faster than current TAS if you hack the weapon ID
0x00C9 = 128 (fire wheel)
At frame 13440.
Scum and I will try to find to get the fire wheel efficiently and also finishing this boss without taking damage in the end, since that allegedly messes with the bullet skip later
#637890054102967494 - [NES] Ninja Gaiden, 1 Frame ahead of the tosser skip in 06-11
Ok, so this game is insane. Got to 06-11 4 frames ahead of the current TAS, however 3 of them had to be lost in order to get a good tosser pattern for the skip in 06-11. Exactly 1 frame before the stage, and 2 frames at the beginning.
Scum had found a similar result, and tried to fit the rest of the movie and found that a 1 frame TAS should now be attainable. Half game remains, still crossing fingers. Hopefully we'll find more frames to shave somewhere.
#637889270828257475 - [NES] Ninja Gaiden, 3-08 with 3 frames difference
Here, 3 frames are saved compared to the current TAS on 03-07. However, since we grabbed the fire circle, it is not possible to realize the skip on 03-08 (we kill the bat).
#637887395846973491 - [NES] Ninja Gaiden, 1 Frame save on 03-07
A 1-frame save on stage 03-07, it seems to stays throughout 03-08's early skip. If this save hopefully sticks, then we might have a new TAS incoming. Crossing fingers.
#74112780116024321 - Ninja Gaiden "Dragon sword only" TAS
Ninja Gaiden (NINJA外伝) (Also know as Ninja Ryukenden (忍者龍剣伝) & as Shadow Warriors is Europe) is a hard NES game.
It was released on SNES with the game Ninja Gaiden Trilogy(NINJA外伝 Trilogy), PC Engine, Mobile phones & Virtual consoles.
Is a hard game of the NES library including Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!, Castlevania trilogy, Contra, Super C, etc.
In this time I'm not using any subweapons, well sometime on the run but the weapons hitbox doesn't hit enemies. So that's very lucky.
In this TAS I don't use any subweapons just only the sword.
Movie goals:
Emu. used: FCEUX 2.2.3
Takes damage to save time
Aims for fastest time
Has some slowdowns
Note: If you find an Improvement you're free to send me in the comments an Improvement of this TAS.
#71823948672262798 - Shadow Warriors (NG1 PAL) TAS (WIP)
This route is probably the fastest RTA viable kill for Basaquer. I don't think this is practically useful for full game speedruns because the execution is very tight, but it might be fun to attempt as an IL. I played this in real time at 12.5% speed to give it a slightly more organic feel. The main points are:
1) Jump ASAP holding Right
2) Use a flame on the ascent and get in position for the descending flame (+2 damage = 2 total)
3) Use a flame then hold Right ASAP when Ryu begins descending (+3 damage = 5 total)
4) Turn to face left and use a standing flame ASAP when Ryu lands (+3 damage = 8 total)
5) Time another standing flame to hit Basaquer as he jumps (+3 damage = 11 total)
6) Hold Right during standing flame animation and jump as soon as Ryu turns around
7) Use a flame while moving as far right as possible (+3 damage = 14 total)
8) At the peak of Ryu's jump, slash-cancel -> slash (+2 damage = 16 total = hooray!)
3 frames improved at 5-2 final screen by better manipulating bird slot 6 by adding 2 delays to spawn it later, this way it won't have enough time to accelerate back to the top vertically
1 frame lost at 5-3 2nd screen because slot 3 sub y is bad, probably unrecoverable
1 frame delay added at the end of 5-3 4th screen (required for next screen knife bitch's knife)
Problem:
the bat boost in 2-2C can put Ryu a half-pixel more to the left—enough to reach the exit a frame sooner in this case. But that change would make the next tosser throw an unavoidable knife, negating that tiny improvement.
Solution:
use spin slash instead of windmill star to clear 2-2A (-1)
take better 2-2C bat boost. now the upcoming tosser cooperates because of the different timing. (-1)
kill one enemy with down+b due to lack of ninpo (+1)
act II ends a frame sooner (0-1-1+1=-1)
But none of that matters. The tosser-boost in 3-2 is acting as a gatekeeper, and it would take at least another 2 frames of improvement before 3-2 to get past him.
Resynced up to 5-2 final screen with Scumtron's 14 frames faster + 2 frames for better ending and good sub Xs.
Knife bitch was a little bit better with only 14 frames (and 1 blank frame, so 13 total) (GIF here again: http://imgur.com/B6nDpWd ), but with the additional 2 frames:
Going without delay: second knife hits us while jumping over him
1 empty frame: first knife hits us while climbing the platform
2 empty frame: second knife hits us while jumping over him
Putting 1 empty frame before spawning knife bitch is used to manipulate him to walk to the right side so we have space to land next to him.
Knife bitch timer in this movie is 24, 17 frames of waiting and 46.
With scum's + blank frame: 26, 16 frames of waiting and 48.
edit: since we sacrifice 1HP at 5-1 start, we have 3 HP to spend in this level, which used to do the birdy boost. Other alterative use of 3 HP is boost from 5-2 3rd screen ballerinas (2dmg) and 5-2 last screen boost from the knife bitch's knife (1dmg) and avoid birds to finish.
5-3 3rd screen slot4 change ruins next screen slot4 bat
edit after 6 comments: slot 4 can be changed on 5-2 last screen, making 5-3 2nd screen 1 frame faster. But this way slot7 and slot4 bad, nullifying the improvement.
The RTA trick in 5-1 feos found a way to make TAS-worthy the other day only turned out to save 2 frames since it had to be traded for another damage-boost due to health limitations. It's also possible to grab the windmill star in 5-1 and trade 1 frame for 4 more health, but seemingly not without killing the slot 6 bird from the unused boost at the same time.
That 2 frame difference set up a new boost in 5-3E which saves another 3 frames. Reaching that point at least 2 frames sooner would also save save another frame, but oh well.
Those improvements finally fixed the two tossers in 6-2 that were each costing 1 frame to deal with.
changed some slots position on edit: 5-2 start by being half pixel behind (without losing frame), but couldn't get a better final screen (slot6 bird)
final screen changed because of different slot4 (knife) pos
but,
6 frames improved on 5-3 3rd screen by avoiding bat differently while delaying gunner to avoid dmg boost and added even more interrupt jugglings to get ahead of the 3 NFL guy
3 frames lost because of subtimer.
5-3 3rd screen probably improvable even more, but also need to rethink HP route.
5-3 3rd screen 5 frames improved by avoiding bat by jumping (to manipulate Y pos) and without interrupt juggling. 1 frame delay at first enemy required for better slot5 next screen
3 frames improved because of subtimer (and added a few more interrupt juggles)
8 frames improved total, can't see other possible improvements.
First WIP that ends the game. 1170 frames faster than feos' initial attempt.
only 1 suicide route test, final (non-boss) level is a miserable series of interrupt juggling.
I can't kill the core with damage boosting, because it doesn't come down and Ryu doesn't jump high enough, feos or scumtron, any tips on this?
edit: last (non-boss) level is 153 frames slower than feos' one, so it's faster with 1 suicide (which takes 230 frames), but obviously a different dmg route is required to avoid too many interrupts.
this WIP includes the 4-1 end improvement but it's nullified because of 4-3 knife bitches
2 frames improved on 5-2 1st screen because of better slot5 position
6 frames improved on 5-2 last screen because of landing further the edge of last platform and manipulating final slot 7 bird. 1 frame delay added because 5-3 2nd screen slot7 was bad.
1 frame lost on 5-3 4th screen because the avoidable slot7 bullet was bad.
3 frames saved on 5-3 5th screen because of better knife bitch boost
3 frames lost after boss battle because of timer.
9 frames faster than previous WIP(123)
I think I miswrote some frame saves/losses or the timer took more than 3 frames?
edit: I've polished the input up to 5-2 hence the rerecord number. tried to make some scenes more exciting (closer jumping to enemy hitboxes).
1 frame improved on 5-3 4th screen end by avoiding last to final bullett better
Can't think of any other possible improvements. Starting to plan 6-1/6-2 hp planning and despawn route. It will be fun.
edit: it's possible to save 1 frame at 5-2 final screen by landing the last platform further the edge to avoid 0.0 speed and remove 2 frame delay at 5-3 2nd screen but fucks up 4th screen slot5 enemy, failing to land on the next platform where I avoid the bullet.
Probably preservable by some interrupt juggling somewhere.
Committing suicide takes 230 frames. Thanksfully, we get full hp refill before boss start, so this WIP is 156 frames faster than previous (WIP 118) one.
Birdy boost takes 3 dmg so it should be used only when it saves a lot more than 1 dmg boosts.
First route test
no dmg boost at 5-2 3rd screen start (jumping ballerinas/roundhouse kickers), they have 2 dmg
no dmg boost at 5-2 4th screen first and last bird
dmg boosting from tyson 5-3 1st screen (1 dmg)
dmg boosting from knife bitch 5-3 5th screen (1 dmg) instead of bird
1 frame saved on 5-3 1st screen by jumping longer from the floor. With different positioning, it's possible to make a very long interrupt sequence (while riding up on the wall), making slot4 (edit: 4th screen bat) positions better, but this way the 3rd screen improvement will be lost.
1 frame saved on 5-3 2nd screen by faster landing on the ladder platform
1 frame saved on 5-3 3rd screen start because better slot 7
edit: other possible improvement would be different positoning on 4th screen.
12 frames faster 6-1 by avoiding 1 dmg boost. 10 frames of ducking probably improvable with despawning the enemy
first try of 6-2 1st screen. knife bitch removed because very bad throws edit: and the next bat would be too high to avoid it and final enemy removed but slower than feos' route.
After countless trial and error, finally made a way to save 10 frames compared to WIP83v6.
The initial problem was the stage 4-2 bitch which threw the worst knives, but luckily I was right at the 127 timer so a different route (interrupting his knife and jumping up from below him) let me keep it.
Syncs up to stage 5-1. 410 frames faster than feos initial attempt.
reminder to myself: remove 5-1 first bird boost because we won't have enough hp on stage 5-2
jumping 2 frames later when killing the soldier behind us
slightly different ending
This unfortunately effects stage 4-3 knife tosser, throwing the total bullshit vertical knife. We don't have enough spiritual energy to make a jump and slash. Ironically, the power up is exactly right before the knife tosser.
Stage 5-6 from 39110 WIP pasted onto Meshuggah's stage 4 changes with a few tweaks to sync things up again.
5-1: Attacks on frames 22761, 23014 delayed one frame to fix slots 5 & 6 subpix values so 2nd bird-boost works.
6-1: Jumps/attack changed before axe-tosser to avoid axe
6-2A: Check out that club that Ryu nearly runs into. Scary!
6-2B: Jumps/attack changed so tossed axe gets killed and fixes xsub for booster enemy 2 screen ahead
6-2D: Less windmill action for now, $BF causes ghoul to stand in the way
6-2E: Tosser still not cooperating, so still losing 1 frame to get through here. Adjusting spawn iterator (interrupt@33781) in dead frames on platform jumps isn't quite enough to fix it either.
6-3C: disc-guy killed one frame earlier so the bird cooperates. (xsub again)
I still haven't looked at the 4-2 changes closely. Not expecting to improve it, but I should probably at least know that for myself
Successfully (completely) resynced Scumtron's fastest route with the 5 frames improvement bird boost at stage 4-2.
Removed the 2 frames delay before stage 4-2
Since bird slot 6 was sentenced to death (unmanipulatable without that 2 frames delay), improvements remain intact
Knife bitch at 5-3 defeated with a different jumping (0 cost)
Stage 6-2 boomerang festival changed so we can easily boost off the soldier
A bird killed because he had a bad slot at 6-3 3rd screen.
Only checked things up to Stage 5 start, not sure if there's any time saver remaining.
edit: I've checked the full run. I don't found nor know any possible improvement. I guess I PM Scumtron so he fills in some post boss dance and eventually submit it.
After enough pacifistiNG, I checked scumtrons unpublished fastest 39110 TAS.
Unfortunately, a 4 frames improvement from the pacifist TAS at Stage 4-2 final bird boost fucks up a few thigs most importantly
the slot7-6 tysons (resyncable by slashing 3-4frames later)
the slot7 machine gun position (resyncable by slashing 1-2 frames earlier)
the slot7 jumping girl (resyncable by jumping and slashing her)
the slot5 turret gun which is magically killed in the previous ("Ninja Gaiden--Scumtron-39110f.fm2") TAS.
The same improvement could be applied to the published TAS probably with the same unfortunate future events.
Final note: no other pacifist trick can be applied to the run (Scumtron already uses the respawn trick cleverly where applied and delaying enemies seems to be "useless"/time loser)
Added scumtron's 0.5px to stage 2-2 second screen final part to hit the end 1 frame faster.
Movie resynced to 3-3 boss. Currently we kill the boss at timer value 1. If I'm correct, we need timer value 60. If scumtron's correct (his logic is more sanic, check NG1 thread last posts), then we are much farther away the target timer value.
Removed the 1 frame delay on 1-2 boss which was required to manipulate 2-1 enemies.
This changed a few things, especially 3-2, and now I'm 1 subtimer (in-game time) behind on 3-3, which makes me lose 3 frames (timer rule).
Regarding previous "required 1 frame delay":
The last part of 1-1 consists important slots in this TAS.
Slot 7 tyson for recovery walljump and 2-1 starting tyson and dog and guardian of ladder on 2-1 2nd screen
Slot 6 (dog) for 2-1 second tyson and 2-1 2nd screen tyson
Slot 4 (tyson)
I've tested all the possible sacrifices BEFORE the 1-1 ending part (last tyson recovery walljump) but either slot 7 (rwj) or slot 4 (last tyson hitting) became worse because of the improvement beforehand, however only losing 0.5px on RWJ deemed to be the best and fewest sacrifice to manipulate everything miraculously.
So, I need to remove 1 interrupt again from the route, not sure if it's possible.
2 frames save preserved up to 4-2 start, but different bitch and bad positions results in 1 frame loss (so only 1 frame saved)
3 frames saved on 4-2 second screen due to different timer and poses and route
desyncs at 5-1. I still have the worst subpos at the start (the NFL soldier from the sky gets worst slot), which affects nearly all of the next enemies in a bad way...
Removed the 2 frame sacrifice and saved it up to 4-2 start by manipulating timer 0 to last boss death.
Side effect: 4-2 knife thrower is few frames slower, we have very bad position (spawns are at 0.5px distance, too much interrupts) and can't really manipulate it on the level (needs different subposes earlier).
Desyncs at 4-2 end. (84 Y pos is the required height, this time Ryu scratches 88 barely.)
Resynced the 2 frames save on 2-2 first screen up to 4-2 start.
Unfortunately I'm 4 subtimer faster (BITCH DESYNC), so I need to rechange a few sections. Also I sacrificed 2 frames before 3-2 which is saved back, without this sacrifice it would be the same length (but probably different subposes).
Currently 255 frames faster @ 4-2 start compared to feos' "full pacifist test run".
Most of my early improvements required to resync later stages each time, so I guess it's now worth to upload something since it's 2 frame faster on 2-2 first screen now.
Something something interrupt bullets + increase distance between ryu and soldier to damage boost off to the platform, so no need to dodge it thanks to invulnerability which worns out so fucking fast (60 frames)
Other than that, this WIP (and from 79s,) contains a lot of subposes changes starting from stage 1 and a few improvements for 4-2 later levels.
Improved 5-1 with a few frames by different route (bird boost, ducking mostly)
2-2 3rd screen: a half pixel save is not enough to improve it.
3-2: no matter how you sacrifice position, birdy won't be good for 2 times like in these WIPs
4-2: probably unimprovable
I don't know if the 4-3 2nd screen bullet guy can be remanipulated to shoot the first bullet properly, it should save a few frames because of the timer limit. I tried changing subposes and interrupt juggling, didn't had real impact on him (he is timer based too).
4-2: 3 frames saved by improving subposes for the route and final birdy.
There's a few limitations for the final bird.
His Y position. Since the bird follow's Ryu's Y position, we need to sacrifice that 1.5px to touch the sticky ledge to raise his target Y pos (ourselves).
For same reason, Ryu needs to jump down from that upper platform too let the bird fly high.
To combine these, bird should be manipulated to hit us at desired Y position (which would be 128 peak jump) by manipulating his X position which either ruins the "upper platform route" or takes too much time to engage us.
Other note is that sacrificing X position is fine, since boosting for 9-10 or 13-14 frames is 4.5-5.0px or 6.5-7.0px X travelling, surely enough to catch the ladder. So now going to reoptimize it with these in mind.
4-1: 2 frames saved by changing subposes and route. Final birdy still unoptimal.
If everything would be perfect, Ryu would just jump twice in a row at the end and get hit by bird for 9 frames, so the Y boosts will be 3*5 + 2*4 + 2 (= 25) + final jump.
Highest jump peak is 128 while target "level end" is at 84. So, you can't finish the level without jumping after boost (128-25 > 84).
For comparison, this movie sacrifices
2*1.5px (avoidable, used to manipulate birdy X position speed)
1.5px (next to last ledge, but otherwise birdy has worse Y pos... maybe unavoidable?)
4-1: 5 (6-1) frames saved by deleting bullet guy on end of first screen. 1 frame sacrificed because of subpos manipulation for last screen. Using any other positioning/manipulation on last screen doesn't works...
Desyncs somewhere 4-2 inevitable damage boost (which I think I will delete/despawn)
4-3 3rd screen: 8 frames lost but kept 8 frames total (worse beginning, better ending)
4-3 last screen: 2 frames saved
4-4 (boss): 3 frames saved by better jumping and positioning.
and 3 frames from timer rule
(5-1 starts 16 frames earlier now)
4-2 3rd screen trick is letting the first guy shoot all his (3) bullets to the right side, so going as fast as possible will won't let an enemy spawn, saving tons of frames. Pretty subpos dependable...
2 frames saved on 4-1 first screen by better positions/positioning
(13 frames) improved 4-2 with despawns, probably improvable but need to come up most optimal route. Birds are cruel, 7th slot jumping idiot is.. irritating.
(2 frames) improved 4-3 second screen.
(75? frames) improved 4-3 third screen.
1 frame saved on boss?... I think I need to update feos pacifist times.
8 frames saved by avoiding damage boost and dodging bullets instead with half pixel interrupts (timing is important since we need to fire and wait for 2 bullets)
2 frames gained because of timer rule, so boss length isn't improved
4-1
2 frames saved by better despawning bitch while keeping cheetah away, missile guy a half pixel away and not let spawn bullet guy's 4th bullet to go for the walljumping route
While 4-1 looks clumsy, it took a while to glue everything into 1 route with minimalized sacrifices. Probably 2 frames lost because of the time rule.
Next plans: 4-2 looks despawn friendly. Going to play with next levels and then reoptimize it from earlier levels.
Lost 11 frames on 4-1 because of bitch. Currently despawning is the fastest for that scene.
Regarding scumtron's old suggestion: a bullet won't let us do the wallclimbing route.
Resynced somewhere 4-2 start.
What's now?
4-1 despawning is 11 frames long sacrifice. If we would go for the longer, "no 2nd birdy boost" on 3-2, we would reach the area few frames later. Going to test it. edit: 14 frames slower without bird and only 6 more ticks: unoptimal
Check every shit (respawn,despawn,prespawn subpos)
1 frame saved on 2-2 3rd screen by better positioning (enemy subposes)
4 frames saved on 3-2 with better subposes on 3-1 and different positoning. For birdy, we need 1110 pos on my marker. Any bigger value will make birdy off screen or slower on second boost, just like sacrificing from it.
Everything looks great, next problem: 4-1 bitch.
Her "ticks" is at ~60 when approaching, we would need ~9-11 frames to get over her, probably a few more to avoid the knife too...
Despawning is too long (not enough enemies), something 9 frames slower than "good bitch" route.
Since I can't see any place to improve, I guess I continue with the despawn route.
Improved 1 frame for 2-2 3rd screen, resynced up to 4-1 start.
Notes:
2-2 3rd screen last bitch will stab you behind if you get any pixels faster than this route.
3-1 important slot 4 and half pixel manipulations for 3-2
unfortunately couldn't get good 3-2 first "birdy wall boost" because of slot 4 knifeguy has still bad subpos. it would save something 5 pixels minus the additional sacrifices.
20 (probably I saved 14 frames in WIP68) frames saved compared to WIP67 (which had 1 frame slower guardian of ladder tyson route) until 2-3 boss with some position sacrifices which probably required in order to glue these route fragments together.
try to minimize sacrifices for 2-3 bitch and afterwards (low chances)
try respawning enemies in 2-3 to save something
maybe document how to do it? (if the spawn point is still on screen and the object left the screen, you can respawn it by going backward for 1 frame. Maybe... and what happens if the slots already filled?)
Saved 4 more frames on 2-2 2nd screen. This is much faster than hitting th bottm of the ladder, since it travels only with 1.0 and Y goes down.
Can't use this trick earlier levels to save time.
Bitch has wrong subpos, not sure how to manipulate it without losing any time, I've already tried a few.
6 frames improved by sacrificing (edit:) 2.0px (0.5px backward) to spawn an enemy on the last frame of his current block "initialization" (green rectangle over the slot @ lua) and sommersault over the ladder. Probably improvable
Couldn't make use of this in earlier levels, trying it again.
Todo: revise game resource page (half-pixel interrupt juggling, new trick: "prespawn subpos manipulation")
After a lot of unsaving rerecords (testing a lot of different subpos changes in time):
1-1
Same length, unimprovable (requires suboptimal subpos changes beforehand, ruining 2-1 entirely and also requires an extra delay)
Delay added on final hit on boss for most efficient 2-1 manipulations (first two tysons, dog on guardian of ladder tyson and himself)
2-1
1 frame saved by letting "prespawn subpos manipulation" of the guardianofladder scene walking guy. When letting go off direction for 1 frame exactly when he would spawn, his position will remain but his subposition (00 - 80). This works on every enemies except tysons of course and I guess knife tossers. Also note this only usable if you have a frame window to sacrifice 1.5px
2-2 2nd screen
1 frame saved by prespawn subpos manipulating the burst guy (3 bullets) to make more optimal our route
Current problem: just a little bit subpos difference for knife toss in 3rd screen. Also the WIP contains a few improvements afterwards this level, but obviously you won't see it until I upload the resynced AND revised one.
2-2 3rd screen: used "highest" position (1598 for Ryu) to jump over BITCH. This way we are 14 (the frames we saved compared to WIP54 beforehand) - 5 (frames required to sacrifice in order to somehow go through BITCH without boost) = 9 frames ahead of WIP54.
3-1: different lesser bitch vs dog, lost 1 frame (probably resaveable)
1-1: improved 1 frame with tyson manipulation. added 1 frame delay to get "most favourable" RNG (WIP55 lucks)
Resynced up to 2-2 last screen, where nightmare begins... knife tosser has changed, "faster" positions give very old "long+fast knife toss" while 1600.0 (old route) requires position sacrifice and next knife hits us.
Spawn delaying and avoidment is tricky and doesn't works everywhere.
3-1: starting with much better position, getting worse knife-cheetah vertical combination (11000th frame) so removed knife tosser. Same time as previous runs because of the spawn avoidment. edit: but worse next level positions
We need to somehow go through that knife-cheetah with previous method (empty, l, l : -1.5 -2.0 - 2.0 sacrfice instead of this 5*-2.0 (-5.5 < -10.0)).. subposes mostly or miraculous (spawn) delay somewhere.
How I didn't thought of this earlier... basically the game only spawns when you reached the spawnable object's X position AND moving to that direction.
So going left at those frames when the game wants to do this, you can delay it for 2~3(4?) frames.
Saves time in certain situations (edit: because interrupt juggling freezes object positions) (3-1 start, maybe 1-1 start?), it's time to start the fucking TAS from the beginning... AGAIN =D
3-2: couldn't squeeze more pixels, can't sacrifice position because of our birdy nor the missile and walking guard's bad subpositions. Still think it's probably improvable
3-3: 45 frames shaved! looks like we can hit the boss inside his hitbox if we use the opposite direction of attacking. Have no idea why this works.
4-1: worse subpositions took 1 frame away but gives a slightly better knife and missile guy positions as well as no dog follows Ryu.
1 frame gained on last screen
Plans: try differnt subpositions for 3-2 new situations (slot4 slot7)
edit: 11 frames saved (12-1 delay) with new 3-2. Route changes:
1 frame delay on 3-1 for next level knife tosser
Changed old "walljumping" to simple platforming to check possible X positions. Only 1110.5 works.
Keeping the first bird for 2 boosts. While the first one is somewhat as fast as the old one, the second boost let me to ignore waiting for next jumps (Ryu jumps so long in time)
Minimal subpositioning (taking damage boost at a bit lower levels)
Probably improvable with a few half pixels and frame(s?)
First level includes headbanging to music. Probably decreases entertainment value, waiting for starman's opinion
Tried to spend our 1 frame delay elsewhere, but it doesn't helped in later screens
2-2 last screen is perfect for me
3-1 uses a little bit different route and an extra delay at the end to get better knife tosser for 3-2 (which isn't possible if you don't delay here. This is because you have no control over Ryu while boosting off the bird to time the spawn of knife tosser)
3-2 maybe improvable with half pixel which could change things.
Saved 1 (edit: or 2? compare to last file) frame on 3-1 with different start (interrupt juggling over damage boost or avoiding without interrupts route), probably improvable (I had to use interrupt between dog and knife tosser to get fast recovery).
Also next level missile guys position fixed but the first bird hit us (so we need to jump 1 frame later, need to test which is faster (subpos manip to prvious route or jump later for better birds and knife tosser positions).
Changing (slot 5 mainly) subpositions without adding delay at 2-2 "second" screen (at RWJ from bullets) let me to skip the first knife thrower on last screen which is now even more faster.
Current 2-2 last screen route:
sacrificing 2.0px (8097th frame) to get "farther" knify tyson
somewhat bad timings but pretty good dmg boost with sacrifices
no sacrificing for endings
Probably 1-2 frames can be squeezed more (judging from the distance between last green soldier and Ryu). The places where I can definitely manipulate slot 5 is very few, so 2-2 second screen looks the only feasible one to waste rerecords.
Tested a LOT of different routes with different subposes and delay timing and interrupts etc, so don't be fooled by small low rerecord count. I was able to save more than 1 frame to get "similar" knife thrower in 2-2 last screen.
Saved 2 frames after jumping through guardian of ladder 2-1 with the earlier 1 frame improvement (3 frames saved).
Currently I get worse knife thrower at 2-2 last screen (slot5, knife slot 4), it looks easy to fix, however later input needs to be revised.
1 frame saved on 3-1 by manipulating subposes and interrupts after bird spawned before the knife thrower
1 frame saved on 3-2 by a differnt RWJ damage boost after bird and different subpos manipulation afterwards for missile guys
Might be possible to save 1 frame on 3-2 but the missile guy spawn doesn't seem to manipulatable with the positions I can squeeze before hand (so I can't sacrifice enough to make it a time saver currently).
WIP version numbers: everytime I finished a test and can't continue the next ones (I need to save previous WIPs to compare various aspects of routes).
Saved 3 frames on 3-2 with:
faster bird RWJ
slightly better missile guy
bit worse ending missile guy
It was 6 frames but fucking timer rule on boss...
Probably syncs for a few stage 4-2 screens. Next tests:
4-1 uses -2.0px to manipulate dog and missile guy. isn't it's possibl e to manipulate it something differently? (with interrupt perhaps)
3-2 missile guys always ruins my tiny improvements, how do I know what is the "highest" position for him (to avoid bumping the wall and to get better boost on end of level)
from 3-1 to further screens: check possible 0 delay RWJ-s and interrupt optimizing.
edit: and check feos' timer trick for bosses (didn't checked it for a while)
Just a wip I did, play all ninja gaiden with one movie, but I have poor experience and technology with this series.
Post this let people know its possibility.
Taking damage on the same frame as killing a boss results in $75 being set to 4, where normally $75 is always 0. This can occasionally prevent speed values from being added to enemy projectile positions, illustrated here with the bullet-boost leaving 4-1A causing a desync (though other bullets in the level are affected too).
51 frames faster than published run. needs new post-boss rejoicing before submission. and i want to finish game resource page before submitting as well.