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Emulator Coder
Joined: 3/9/2004
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You know, we can all try working together to come up with routes for later levels... The hintbook contains images for the first 99 levels.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Reviewer, Expert player (2435)
Joined: 5/21/2013
Posts: 414
That's a good idea, I was just looking at some future levels. Here's my plan for level 2 up for criticism: Parts of the level necessitate a jetpack so get one ASAP. I have a hunch it's faster to do a counterclockwise loop rather than a clockwise one, but I'll test both ways. EDIT: Also the worm will get in the way of some routes so keep that in mind
Player (230)
Joined: 4/25/2012
Posts: 73
I suspect a clockwise route will be faster just because it doesn't need to cover as much ground. If you start by travelling clockwise, those two long horizontal segments at the bottom of the screen can both be avoided. The only potential hangup would be worm timing, but I think the worm's path is long enough that they won't come out of the yellow teleporter until you're done with that section, and that's really the only place it could be a problem in the clockwise version. It's unfortunate, but it doesn't really seem like the teleporters can be incorporated usefully into the route.
Joined: 9/27/2011
Posts: 207
Location: Finland
The hintbook has an older-version picture of at least the very first level (one with the two trackbots instead of trackbot and spinner) so... we'd have to be careful using those even if it's a good idea to use it as a source. It probably wouldn't be a problem to just take screen shots like I did (I did the first ten levels cause after that you can warp directly ahead) and in the process you might even come up with some new ideas. In fact I forgot to mention: Did you know that the trackbot's AI is not all deterministic? Just watch him move around in different situations, he will eventually break his pattern and go on an adventure. If that was to be manipulable, it could be a way to avoid an obstacle in some level. Looks like other buttons make the start of the level faster too, but maybe up is the fastest. Also returning back to the "let's use an algorithm"-type solution that I was originally speculating about when this thread was revived, have you considered using simple heuristics for calculating an expected time for each route? All you'd need is an algorithm that determines the time it takes for moving across a certain horizontal distance w/ or w/o jetpack, for falling a certain distance, for phasing a block etc. It wouldn't produce solutions but it might be faster as a method of testing them to some accuracy. Anyway, I'm sure we'll find more ideas collectively and it certainly makes sense to make it into a more collective project. In fact that's an idea I've had already some time in the past: why couldn't more TAS projects be more communal? You could even have a whole page devoted to a single game with easy-navigation info about the game, a map, relevant pictures etc. Cause that would also leave the all the relevant information available for future runners. So more wiki-style. Maybe there's things like that already going on now. I have made a couple more observations about the game that don't relate to either of the first two levels. So if someone created the tricks page for this game, we could start listing such things in there as well as mentioning them here whenever they seem relevant. Also making one neat folder of all the route pictures when no-one can optimise them any more would sound smart.
Joined: 9/27/2011
Posts: 207
Location: Finland
I'd like to add I personally don't think it's a good idea to have more than a 2-3 of levels up on the "bulletin board" at once. Did you know you can jump at the start of levels even if you spawn mid-air? At least I think you can. Anyway when we have the trick page up it will make this page more neat, because we can easily go see what's already known and what's not. I agree with Mojo. Going left from where you land after the tunnel looks faster on paper at least.
Emulator Coder
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BrotherMojo wrote:
I suspect a clockwise route will be faster just because it doesn't need to cover as much ground.
I agree that that does indeed look like the fastest. However, unless one can manipulate it to get a fuel canister to appear on the top at the beginning, clockwise isn't possible
BrotherMojo wrote:
It's unfortunate, but it doesn't really seem like the teleporters can be incorporated usefully into the route.
Depends what the route is. For example, they can be used in this route:
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Emulator Coder
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Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
Svimmer wrote:
I agree with Mojo. Going left from where you land after the tunnel looks faster on paper at least.
Going left would be counter-clockwise. I'm less sure about the going left at start approach. Edit: Another thing to consider about this level. If one is low on fuel, on the upper left, grab the teleporter for a moment to get more fuel.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Reviewer, Expert player (2435)
Joined: 5/21/2013
Posts: 414
I like traveling down on the left side rather than up, just because falling down the stairs is so much quicker. There is a bit more distance to cover though, so it'll be close. The worm could also foil the CW route so it may not even matter. EDIT: The CW/CCW in this context is after you fall out of the tunnel, by the way.
Emulator Coder
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Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
Well, if you were to move left at start, this would be the route: Thinking more about it, I happen to like this route. Edit: This route covers the same amount of ground slamo's first proposed route covers. The key differences are: No fuel here while going up left corner. This route uses yellow teleporter for fuel. Fuel while going down center area. Right most shaft is fallen down instead of flown up. The marble worm would probably have a say in which method is better.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Emulator Coder
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
I realized there's yet another way to start the level. Begin by taking the teleporter. There's a legend at the bottom of the order the colors are used in. Edit: I doubt this is faster than previous routes suggested by slamo or myself, but I presented it, because it's good to keep an open mind, and maybe will spur innovation.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Reviewer, Expert player (2435)
Joined: 5/21/2013
Posts: 414
Nach wrote:
Well, if you were to move left at start, this would be the route:
Interesting route. It does cover the same amount of ground, but keep in mind that there is some delay in teleportation - about 20 frames worth - and doing this 3 times adds about a second of time loss. Here is the new level 1 video (glitched sound): Link to video The trackbot caused some trouble in this new route as you'll see, but without it the ending wouldn't be so nice. It's perfect for anyone not familiar with how the game works :)
Emulator Coder
Joined: 3/9/2004
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Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
slamo wrote:
The trackbot caused some trouble in this new route as you'll see, but without it the ending wouldn't be so nice.
Totally awesome! This is what I watch TASes for.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Joined: 9/27/2011
Posts: 207
Location: Finland
So are we using top left = 0,0 or 1,1? Because there can always be improvements on the previous levels that may affect the RNG for the levels after, it seems very useful to have many alternative routes already thought out. As for the new level 1 route, looks like you could manipulate the trackbot to go left off the ladder next to the purple tp after picking up the gem above that ladder by curving slightly towards the left. Looks like it wouldn't even lose almost any time. I wonder if you could also manipulate the trackbot to go down the first ladder it encounters. In fact I wanted to test that. Are you guys using the "jetpak15" rar contents unmodified? Also, Nach, would it be possible to have a Jetpack Game Resources page? Does it take an admin to do that? Didn't see a way. I'm surprised to see the death exit bug this early by the way. :)
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Svimmer wrote:
So are we using top left = 0,0 or 1,1?
We should probably use the latter.
Svimmer wrote:
In fact I wanted to test that. Are you guys using the "jetpak15" rar contents unmodified?
I don't know about any rar. Get everything here: http://www.adeptsoftware.com/jetpack/
Svimmer wrote:
Also, Nach, would it be possible to have a Jetpack Game Resources page? Does it take an admin to do that? Didn't see a way.
Wiki: GameResources/DOS/Jetpack
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Reviewer, Expert player (2435)
Joined: 5/21/2013
Posts: 414
Perhaps you can save frames by misdirecting the trackbot, but the death exit actually saves some frames by positioning your corpse perfectly in front of the door without having to land. Plus it looks way cooler. And a Jetpack page! Really cool, it's good to have all that stuff in one place. Level 2 (glitched sound): Link to video The worm caused some problems here, and fuel was actually an issue as well, I had to pick up both tanks. The worm got in the way of both routes, so the one I used here has the least hindrance from it. Time to get thinking about level 3: It flows pretty logically to me, I can't think of any other drastically different route that would work.
Emulator Coder
Joined: 3/9/2004
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slamo wrote:
Link to video
Looks pretty good.
slamo wrote:
The worm caused some problems here, and fuel was actually an issue as well, I had to pick up both tanks. The worm got in the way of both routes, so the one I used here has the least hindrance from it.
Is general, is it faster to fall down or fly up? Or are they the same? Of the previously mentioned routes, a lot is interchangeable due to their being divergent paths all around the green teleporters. That should allow working around the worm of marbles if some proposed method runs into them.
slamo wrote:
It flows pretty logically to me, I can't think of any other drastically different route that would work.
I have some ideas about the upper left corner, I'll think more about it.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Emulator Coder
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
Regarding the gem in the middle right above the door, is it faster to get it before visiting the top half like illustrated, or perhaps on the way back right before the gem to the left of it is nabbed? Edit: Ignoring what I just said, here's the alternate left corner I was thinking about: I really wish I had some numbers in front of me how long it took to bust the strong bricks.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Emulator Coder
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
Nach wrote:
Is general, is it faster to fall down or fly up? Or are they the same?
Okay, Ilari and I added more info to the page. Help out guys if you can! If you don't have access to edit, please ask for it.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Reviewer, Expert player (2435)
Joined: 5/21/2013
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I'll get some numbers up there about phasing blocks (the ones I've reached, at least) I believe getting the middle gem on the way down is actually faster now that I look at it. The idea with the upper left corner involves phasing 3 blocks instead of 2 so I would not favor it, those suckers take a long time to break through.
Reviewer, Expert player (2435)
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Level 4 is quite "complex" (hoho) and warrants some discussion. Some things to test:
    How to handle the start - phase down? Get the jetpack ASAP? Phasing up from the red switch or going around Entering the "red gate" room from the top or the right How much the trackbot will troll, and how to deal with it
Emulator Coder
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Edit: Sorry forgot a part in that route. Right before going down and left, visit the green teleporter. Edit2:
slamo wrote:
How to handle the start - phase down? Get the jetpack ASAP?
Probably.
slamo wrote:
Phasing up from the red switch or going around
Or ignoring it entirely.
slamo wrote:
Entering the "red gate" room from the top or the right
Or via the teleporter. However, if a teleporter path is slower, I think if we can work it via the right, we'd travel less if we take the right.
slamo wrote:
How much the trackbot will troll, and how to deal with it
It probably will if you take the road as is as in your picture. I think you'll need to phase around it.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Player (230)
Joined: 4/25/2012
Posts: 73
Um, so I still think that this should be faster for level 02... I think the only potential issue is fuel, but in this route you cover less ground as mentioned, and you end up falling down that long column on the right rather than flying up it. Plus if necessary you could use the yellow teleporter twice to pick up the other tank, if that doesn't use up enough time that you run into the worm. Also, is it not possible/not faster to touch down on the conveyor belts that actually are travelling the same direction as you, and only fly over the ones travelling the other direction? Even if it's not actually faster it could be considered as a way to save a little bit of fuel. And similarly, even though it's a bit slower to run, for long horizontal stretches like the top it may be worthwhile to touch down if that can save you a detour to pick up more fuel. Even if my route ends up slower, you could also experiment to see if it's possible to save enough fuel on your route to need only one tank. EDIT: So I just played through the level at full speed. Even with my human inefficiency, I easily made it to the yellow teleporter before the worm reached it, and even without picking up the second tank I only barely did not have enough fuel to reach the exit on one tank, though that was with walking along the top and the conveyors to save fuel. I wouldn't be surprised if taking a quick jump through the yellow teleporter would save more time overall.
Joined: 9/27/2011
Posts: 207
Location: Finland
I just finished my changes to the RP (resource page). I added various sections and some of the tricks that have been mentioned etc. Could everyone give their input on one thing: I created a list of "naming conventions", some of which are from the manual, some are (IMO) better names than what the manual has and some things I just came up with. So if you see something (they're only suggestions and no-one has to use them) that you'd rather change, or something that's missing, could you add your opinion under the entry or somewhere using asterisks (**). The questions I wanted to ask is did slamo/others do anything to the contents of jetpak15.zip before making the game image out of it? Did you remove anything? Also what DOS are you using and where can it be found? Could you add this info to the RP as well, because don't you have to have the same images if you want to watch the WIP's in the emulator? Someone should probably add all of the candidate routes on the RP as well (unless that makes it slow to load, does it help if they're hidden?) except for those that have clearly been obsoleted. My logic still says having more than one candidate is good for potential RNG issues in the final version of the run, right? EDIT If you wanted to be really systematic, there should be information about each candidate, at least the time it gave, a demonstration video for each route, because of letting everyone know how the route was implemented (there could be a mistake in the demonstration). But that would give the runner a lot to do. I for one am happy to help with managing the RP and adding route pictures etc. but I currently feel a bit uncomfortable with JPC-RR itself. I like the route/ideas Mojo presents in the above post. It should definitely be tested.
Joined: 9/27/2011
Posts: 207
Location: Finland
I wonder if there could even be a way to separate the levels themselves into different discussion areas? You could maybe have just one level being discussed on this thread and the rest deposited on the RP? There, under hidden sections you could talk about the routes as long as you like without creating any clutter on this page. The only problem with that is that it would limit how many people can write at once, because... I don't actually even know what happens if more than one editor saves their changes simultaneously. Is it like dividing by zero? What Ilari said below. But I feel something like this needs to be done, because imagine someone comes up with a new route for level 2 when 80 levels have already been done? You can't really post your new idea here any more, because everything would be mixed up, so I'd suggest something like this: the name of the thread should be updated periodically to indicate which levels are being scrutinized at the moment, maybe just 1-2 levels? And for other levels you'd just wait for a chance to edit (copy-paste preferably) your new suggestions into the right place in the RP. And when level 99 has been finished, there would be a new round starting from the first level, seeing if new tricks/routes have been reported on the RP and so on... Maybe after two passes it will be good enough? :) What do you think about all this?
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Svimmer wrote:
I don't actually even know what happens if more than one editor saves their changes simultaneously.
Changes get overwritten by the latest version.
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