Ferret Warlord, who has a seriously cool name, wrote:
Edit Zwie: I also suggest starting a topic for this game and posting WIPs every so often so we can critique your progress.
Done and done.
I was very proud of my 15:24 Coco-run and thought it was a worthy submission, but forum regulars pointed out lots of improvements that had just never occurred to me. A new route was proposed. Apparently I can skip naming altogether, leading an army of ____ characters to victory. Frame-by-framing all the menus hadn't seemed worthwhile to me when I was already playing at 6% speed, but there was definitely some time saved there. And Bag of Magic Food, I even designed a useful second character.
Upshot? I'm checking the movie now for desynchs, but it looks like I got it down to a sub-15 minute time.
Ferret Warlord wrote:
Personally, I'm not so sure about using the shuriken. From my experiments, I'd guesstimate about 2-5 seconds lost per level, and the bosses go so quickly already I doubt it'd make up for it.
The shuriken may be useful for short levels/long bosses, though. Look into that.
Oh boy, you thought the bosses were fast before. Although I miss the extra few pixels in jump height the sheer speed with which it rips bosses apart cannot be denied.
Well lookit that. 14:46 and no desynchs. A 38 second improvement!
Cocoron WIP
Joined: 10/27/2004
Posts: 1978
Location: Making an escape
Not bad! I'll watch it a few more times to make sure about something, but for the moment, two things stuck out.
1. The jumps inside the castle and the last level seemed sloppy. Several steps were overshot.
2. You still do some unnecassary backtracking in the last level. <v_v>
But this one does look a lot better though. I never expected that strategy on the moon! :P
A hundred years from now, they will gaze upon my work and marvel at my skills but never know my name. And that will be good enough for me.
Not bad! I'll watch it a few more times to make sure about something, but for the moment, two things stuck out.
1. The jumps inside the castle and the last level seemed sloppy. Several steps were overshot.
I've learned quite a bit about Cocoron's jump timing. There are a few different "powers" of jumps...come to think of it, I think they're "powers of two" jumps. After you release A, you still have a bit of arc to your trajectory that gets bigger when you hold for 1, 2, and 16 frames...I'll have to double-check on 4 and 8.
Anyway, these jumps that look overshot are what happens when 15 frames of A doesn't quite get you there, but 16 frames is too much. Sad but true. It's one of the drawbacks of carrying Shuriken around.
One new thing I did learn in this run, although not until the final levels, is that running into a wall doesn't stop your all-important momentum as long as you hold the direction down. What this means is you can jump up a straight wall while holding the arrow and as soon as you crest the top you'll have full horizontal speed.
Ferret Warlord further wrote:
2. You still do some unnecassary backtracking in the last level. <v_v>
That part just before the Ratketeers, where I loop around and jump over an armadillo? I can't make it up both tiers in one jump and --
Oh bloody hell. I can just leap from the right edge and curve around to the upper platform. It'll look sloppy and won't set me up as well for the next jump, but it'll be faster.
I'm glad that part's near the end.
Finally, Ferret Warlord wrote:
But this one does look a lot better though. I never expected that strategy on the moon! :P
I'm glad the moon died when he did. There doesn't seem to be enough room in there to be perfectly safe; if the left star had appeared it would have just clipped my tail or the corner of my head.
Joined: 10/27/2004
Posts: 1978
Location: Making an escape
Well, now the stairs have been explained. Makes sense then. :P
Okay, I watched it some more and two things stood out. You're not going to like these, I'm afraid. :S
1. Are you sure you can't use a ?-?-music config for rescuing the princess? I just tested some things related to this and you can still jump the armidillos.
2. Running down a hill gives you greater horizontal speed. It didn't look like you abused this as much as possible. If it's the fact that your character keeps running off without hit the slope, then it can be corrected by letting go of your walking for a frame before hitting it.
A hundred years from now, they will gaze upon my work and marvel at my skills but never know my name. And that will be good enough for me.
I'm not dead, just taking a break after playing this game three times in one weekend.
Ferret Warlord wrote:
1. Are you sure you can't use a ?-?-music config for rescuing the princess? I just tested some things related to this and you can still jump the armidillos.
The question really becomes "is the time saved while rescuing Princess worth the time (and aesthetics) lost to lag in the house level?" I used shuriken quite a bit to kill off some lag immediately after the princess and make that level quite a few frames faster. Unfortunately ?-?-music is so light that he easily outruns his own shots, making him useless against enemy-induced lag. The lightest we can go is ?-?-boomerang, and the range on that is worse than useless.
I'll have to do some more frame comparisons, but ?-?-shuriken looks promising. It saves 67 weight and gives me a chance to show off the spring body :) I'll have to make sure I don't need any hovering to fend off lag...
Ferret Warlord wrote:
2. Running down a hill gives you greater horizontal speed. It didn't look like you abused this as much as possible.
I thought that was just an optical illusion. Guess I need to watch a few more times and identify where I can use this.
Joined: 10/27/2004
Posts: 1978
Location: Making an escape
I too thought it was an illusion, but testing revealed it not to be the case. It would also appear you stop for a frame as you get on/off a hill.
I did a test run to rescue the princess using ?-?-music (the movie is long since gone) and only once did I have to stop for ten frames to avoid hitting a dillo. Overall it was about three seconds faster. But here's even better news: because of this, you don't have to leave Ugly behind completly! :D
Here's a thought for a future project: a run where Ugly is used exclusively. Hey, we have a Mario 2 run with Toadstool only. :P
I would like to know how the game calculates the effects of weight.
A hundred years from now, they will gaze upon my work and marvel at my skills but never know my name. And that will be good enough for me.
I did a test run to rescue the princess using ?-?-music (the movie is long since gone) and only once did I have to stop for ten frames to avoid hitting a dillo. Overall it was about three seconds faster.
Ahah, yes it's faster when rescuing the princess, but is it also faster after you play the house level with it? Because according to the plot all your other non-princess-rescuing characters are kidnapped and put into eggs, and you must beat the house level to get another character back. Whichever char you rescue the princess with is automatically what you use in the next level. Ergo, ?-?-Mel must be faster after playing both the Forest->Milk Sea and the house level.
Of course, I haven't gone through and tested this yet. And Wednesday is drunk night. If you've tested up through house, disregard all comments and continue with the critique.
EDIT: Tested! You're right. ??Mel came through the house about 150 frames faster than ?WinShr, even after the lag. Wow.
Thread, I bid thee rise!!
I finally pushed my other hobbies aside to give Cocoron some more of that special pumpkin lovin'. I used my old movie up to the Fairy Queen and started recording from the character creation menu, which is why the rerecord count is so low. The result is another 5 second improvement, to a time of 14:41 (52876 frames).
CocoronJ WIPv2
Time saved comes from:
I finally surrendered to the Ferret Warlord and used a ??Mel to rescue Princess Rua. ~150 frames all told even though it looks sloppier and lags!
Didn't do that stupid backtracking described above.
I used more downhills in the Tapir stages. Sometimes the ratketeers just couldn't be evaded, but whenever I could get through without being hit I did. Small number of frames here. Watching my old movie repeatedly, I'm not sure there are many downhills in the other stages that I could abuse without setting myself up for a bad jump/enemy. Will investigate further.
I optomized the hell out of Tapir himself in both battles. I think I got 5 hits on him every time he was vulnerable...6 hits has proved even more elusive, but if possible would cut an entire cycle off the battle.
EDIT: As far as I can tell the biggest remaining time-saver is the lag when traveling from Star Hill to the Forest, worth another couple of seconds. Those stupid birds mess up everything!
Any other items I'm too blind to see?
Joined: 10/27/2004
Posts: 1978
Location: Making an escape
Looking great so far! The ground work has been laid, but is looking a little rough. All you have to do is refine the snot out of it, and it'd be worthy for sumission. <^_^>
Three quick notes:
1. When rescuing the princess, you can jump over the enemies in the narrow corridors, so you don't have to stop for them. As stated before, I only had to slow down for ten frames so I wouldn't land on top of an enemy. It was where you jumped up on top of a ledge; I took the low road there and had to slow down otherwise that armidillo would have smacked me.
2. For levels that really don't need any hovering, like Castle -> Mountain, it might be worth it to use ?-?-Shuriken. No gaurantees, though.
3. Try slowing down on the ice dragon. The last part of his shell seems to come off automatically (there's no damage noise), so attacking then probably isn't doing anything. Slow down and you won't get as much lag.
I was investigating the clouds on that path, and they stuck an invisible wall underneath the one before you have to go down. Could have been a nice short cut, but... <¬_¬>
Other than that, just optimize, optimize, optimize! Good luck, and remember, you too are a pretty lady! (sorry, I just love that line <^_^>)
A hundred years from now, they will gaze upon my work and marvel at my skills but never know my name. And that will be good enough for me.
Some other people had the iNES mapper problem, I think it was just from a bad ROM.
About this run:
It looks like you can kill the very first boss (pirate ship) faster by moving much closer to it (while firing) when the battle starts, and if necessary backing away between shots.
For the areas where you're overshooting the stairs (jumping up 2 and a half steps high, it looks like), wouldn't it be faster to instead jump up 1 step at a time?
Going down hills is definitely faster, does that mean going up hills is slower? I can't quite tell if you're flying up them or walking up them, but if walking it might be slower. (And it seems like going down hills with a character that has treads gives more of a speed boost than normal, but that probably really is an illusion.)
There are some (well, very few) places where there are lots of enemies onscreen but you leave them all alone, when it looks like it'd be faster to kill some. Even if they all create eggs, I think it's likely that eggs cause less lag than enemies. (When using the character that outruns his own shots, would it be faster to kill some more enemies by shooting backwards as you pass them by?)
1. When rescuing the princess, you can jump over the enemies in the narrow corridors, so you don't have to stop for them. As stated before, I only had to slow down for ten frames so I wouldn't land on top of an enemy. It was where you jumped up on top of a ledge; I took the low road there and had to slow down otherwise that armidillo would have smacked me.
See, this is exactly what I'm talking about. I just do things because I've always done them, and I don't stop to think about whether it's framewise the fastest way. Taking the low road doesn't really give a significant speed-up on the low road itself, but it might offset the rest of the board enough frames that I don't have to shoot the stupid skunk. I tried everything to get past that goober, but once he revs up to shoot his hitbox enlarges to cover his tail.
Ferret Warlord wrote:
2. For levels that really don't need any hovering, like Castle -> Mountain, it might be worth it to use ?-?-Shuriken. No gaurantees, though.
Now that I've seen the wonders of ??Mel, I'm noticing more and more places where Wing is more of a convenience than a necessity. If it wasn't for the usefulness of hovering on the bosses I'd be tempted to bring out a ??Shr for everything.
Ferret Warlord wrote:
3. Try slowing down on the ice dragon. The last part of his shell seems to come off automatically (there's no damage noise), so attacking then probably isn't doing anything. Slow down and you won't get as much lag.
I do stop shooting before his last little shell comes off, I was just venting rage into his hide for fun. I didn't see any lag frames because of that...it only lags when his shell comes off into four pieces, and that's solely due to the pieces.
Nitsuja wrote:
It looks like you can kill the very first boss (pirate ship) faster by moving much closer to it (while firing) when the battle starts, and if necessary backing away between shots.
I stopped at a point that I wouldn't get beaned by the skeleton or rammed by the ship. What you propose would require hovering probably halfway between that point and the ship, slowly backing away while turning around for four frames to fire the shots. Hovering right next to the ship would allow me to fire every other frame, but then I'd have no chance to build up backwards momentum...
Sounds like a challenge :)
Nitsuja wrote:
For the areas where you're overshooting the stairs (jumping up 2 and a half steps high, it looks like), wouldn't it be faster to instead jump up 1 step at a time?
Noted for testing. It seems so counter-intuitive.
Nitsuja wrote:
Going down hills is definitely faster, does that mean going up hills is slower? I can't quite tell if you're flying up them or walking up them, but if walking it might be slower. (And it seems like going down hills with a character that has treads gives more of a speed boost than normal, but that probably really is an illusion.)
I've never noticed an uphill slowing me down, which is weird because momentum is such a big deal everywhere else. If you stop on a hill, you'll slowly start to slide downhill unless you have treads. That's really the only ability treads have. Knowing that, it might well be even faster on the downhill due to some weird internal math, but holy crap are tanks slow.
Nitsuja wrote:
(When using the character that outruns his own shots, would it be faster to kill some more enemies by shooting backwards as you pass them by?)
The game does seem to keep track of enemies that are slightly offscreen, so there's a good chance I can hit some with Melody. Flying elephants sadly take way too many shots to kill and are the major source of lag in that board.
Nitsuja wrote:
There are some (well, very few) places where there are lots of enemies onscreen but you leave them all alone, when it looks like it'd be faster to kill some. Even if they all create eggs, I think it's likely that eggs cause less lag than enemies.
I wasn't on top of the lag yet in the first few boards. Those should be cleaned up in the final master run, if I ever get the gumption to face this game again. That Trump Castle boss battle just takes sooooo long to work through. It saps the will.
I did notice that eggs don't seem to figure into the lag, or at least only count as half a sprite or something. In fact, shots and weapons don't seem to create lag at all. It makes me think there's some really really poorly coded AI routines, because three flying elephants can make lag all on their own, and those flying pieces of Silver Dragon's shell are just murder on the framerate.
Joined: 10/27/2004
Posts: 1978
Location: Making an escape
Monthenor wrote:
I do stop shooting before his last little shell comes off, I was just venting rage into his hide for fun. I didn't see any lag frames because of that...it only lags when his shell comes off into four pieces, and that's solely due to the pieces.
It's those pieces I'm talking about. Slow down a bit and you won't end up with as many pieces on the screen, meaning less lag. (then again, some quick testing showed that might not be the case; if this is so, then ignore me)
Shame this game has to suffer so badly from lag.
Monthenor wrote:
I just do things because I've always done them, and I don't stop to think about whether it's framewise the fastest way
That's part of the challenge of doing these. In ordinary playing, you tend to lean towards the safe side and sit back and pick off enemies before continuing on. Here, you try to pull off stunts that no human would ever dare to attempt. It's a different sort of thinking, and it's what makes these powerplays so fun to watch. You should get used to it after a while, so don't worry.
A hundred years from now, they will gaze upon my work and marvel at my skills but never know my name. And that will be good enough for me.
Okay, I've decided to resurrect this run as my second major TAS project. I'm measuring my current run against Monthenor's unpublished run. I finished the Milk Sea, and I'm about to take on the Joker at Trump Castle. I'm 610 frames ahead, with 84 fewer frames of lag.
Monthenor's run is pretty solid, but there is a lot of room for improvement. I think his use of the Shuriken is questionable, so I elected to use the ?/Wing/Melody setup for my main character. For the later bossless stages, I'm going to use ?/?/Melody for maximum speed. The wing body is just so good at fighting bosses that nothing else can come close.
Back to dissing Monthenor's run - most of the menu navigation can be improved, since practically every input can be entered a frame earlier than he did. Also, there are many sliding boosts that he didn't take, and hill-climbs (which cost a frame each time) that can be avoided. Finally, I suspect that he didn't pay too much attention to lag reduction, since there are several instances of severe lag that can be easily avoided. In Trump Castle, its trivial to get the armadillos to throw their shells off-screen, but he has them remain on the screen for a long time, losing practically every other frame for several seconds.
I've found a few places in which I can take damage to save time. During the Milk Sea boss battle, if I get hit by a pirate, I can use my invincibility to move inside the ship, allowing me to do instant damage without waiting for my bullets to travel. In Trump Castle, I allowed myself to get hit by the first falling turtle, since there's literally no way around it and you have to waste time there anyway. This will save a few frames when my health bar ticks up at the beginning of the boss battle, since there's less health to count.
I'm also a little skeptical regarding the route choice. For this test run I'm going to go with it, but I can't help but wonder if there would be a faster solution. The route has to end on either Milk Sea or the Fairy Forest in order to rescue the Princess as quickly as possible, but AFAIK it can start anywhere.
Because my character moves faster than his bullets (or musical notes, in this case), I can't kill enemies directly in front of me to reduce lag. Furthermore, shooting bullets tends to increase the lag, since there are suddenly new objects on the screen. Even so, I've been able to avoid almost a second and a half of lag in the first two stages. One little trick that can occasionally save a frame involves slowing down a little bit right before an "unavoidable" frame of lag, then autofiring the direction until you're past that point. If you can keep your speed at a particular magic number, you can avoid a frame of lag without sacrificing a full frame of movement.
Rayas wrote:
Dunno if I'm really clear. I need to drink more.
<br>
adelikat wrote:
The idea was to kill off my family to avoid lost time to them getting sick and other inconvenient things.
