Part 1 of this series of mazes...
Link to video
The first half is about making the most out of waiting time, I can't go straight for the top center gems right away. I did figure out a neat trick to get down the uladders faster, which is why I'm phasing when climbing down them. Second half just boils down to going up or right first. Going right is faster, but only by a few frames.
Still working on this, 62 has been "rough". Here's what I've got right now:
Link to video
The batbots are a huge problem here. They tend to congregate in the center area, which is not really a great area to deal with. Most of the level is centered around 1) drawing them out of areas I need to get to and 2) hitting a good missile cycle in the nook above the bottom purple teleporter. If it seems like I'm waiting and wasting time, it's probably because I'm waiting for batbots to clear out. Keep in mind that their hitboxes are very bottom-heavy and most of the actual sprite can be passed through.
Not sure if I'm ready to move on here...I'll have to think about this some more.
It's really hard to give suggestions here... Looks like you go through the top left twice and could have picked up the gem at (7,2) on the second pass but it's all so interconnected with the cycles and things... If you established how many frames each cycling monster has in its patrol cycle, you could maybe see if you changed the route a little would that enable you to hit earlier cycles somewhere. This is what I was talking about at Missile City. Anyway that's all I've got.
Checkers!
Link to video
This level has been anticipated amongst us due to potential fuel issues. Some believed that there wasn't enough fuel in the level and I would have to wait for/try to manipulate a fuel powerup to appear. As I was looking at this level more closely, it's actually possible (albeit slow) to finish without fuel by delay-phasing and jumping, so the level was actually guaranteed to get finished. On an anti-climactic note, I get through the level on just the full tank at the beginning. No attempt was made at minimizing fuel usage in this run and being super-efficient wasn't even necessary as the level is completed with over 10% left in the tank. I'm probably not done with this level as there may be slightly better routes, but I'm glad fuel isn't a problem here.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
Now that's what I call a TAS. A human can't do that, so many many close calls. A real person would need to find creative fuel expensive ways around the enemy.
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.
How do you know which of the two possible lreds to phase out to get inside the desired checker square? Did you already experiment with manipulating the spinners in the previous level? Or have you found that to be impossible already? Don't know if it's possible not to get harassed no matter what.
BTW... Have you ever considered doing the following anywhere: pre-alting to get a wiggle fall for greater horizontal displacement before phasing blocks out from underneath you?
How do you know which of the two possible lreds to phase out to get inside the desired checker square? Did you already experiment with manipulating the spinners in the previous level? Or have you found that to be impossible already? Don't know if it's possible not to get harassed no matter what.
BTW... Have you ever considered doing the following anywhere: pre-alting to get a wiggle fall for greater horizontal displacement before phasing blocks out from underneath you?
The best brick to phase out is generally the one you can start phasing first. There may be some exceptions but this is always a few frames faster. There is no way the spinners can't be in the way, the spaces are too small.
I'm not sure what you mean by pre-alting here, you can only wiggle at a decent speed if you have no fuel. This would kill your falling speed anyway.
Just a little milestone and progress update, here's 66:
Link to video
I was worried about the barriers at first but I found a route that keeps the time down a lot lower than I anticipated. By flipping the red and blue switches within a certain time window I can have the missile open the exit for me while keeping the blue switch off until I've finished my return to the top area. This is also another one of those fuel charging levels, as usual I get just enough to complete the level.
So that's 67 levels done now - 2/3 of the way through. I still plan to finish this TAS within 2013, it should be doable if I keep up a decent pace.
slamo,
were you just out of fuel when you finished? Good stuff all around everyone.
Yes, the tank was completely empty. What I do is run the level first with a full tank to determine how much fuel is needed, and then for the final run I charge up only that much. The lua script helps a lot since it gives me the exact amount of fuel I have rather than just a meter.
Work those leg muscles!
Link to video
I figured people would want to see this one because it's one of the better known levels in Jetpack, mainly for its difficulty. I recall this level was near the end of the 10-level Jetpack demo I had as a kid, and I don't think I ever beat it. It feels good to finally get past it, at least in some way, and emerge victoriously from within the marble.
70 looks pretty linear. Suspecting any optimization are to be found?
Oh wow! You've made some important discoveries now that I saw the RP. Interesting about spears, but I can't find myself being surprised with this game any more :). Sounds like there's going to be more on the ToDo for phase 2 though with spinner manipulation! (I knew it! :D)
70 looks pretty linear. Suspecting any optimization are to be found?
Oh wow! You've made some important discoveries now that I saw the RP. Interesting about spears, but I can't find myself being surprised with this game any more :). Sounds like there's going to be more on the ToDo for phase 2 though with spinner manipulation! (I knew it! :D)
Yeah the spinner manipulation was a nice surprise, I thought it was a fixed direction. I started doing this a little while back, it's already in 65 and more importantly in 68, where it saves a ton of time.
Still working very hard on this, videos will probably be scarce during the home stretch. I just started work on level 76, and I'm expecting this project to be done sometime in October.
79, here's a fun one...
Link to video
The large masses of gems make this one kind of awkward to do. There are only two major routes that make sense (with and without purple teleporter) but there are about a billion ways to do the larger rooms. There's tons of phase boosting in all directions, so if it appears I'm going too far into a square it's just to get in a better position to reverse my direction. All this, plus juggling flitzer manipulation...ugh. Not sure if I'm done with this level, I'm going to play around with it a bit longer, if anyone sees better ways to do these rooms let me know.
Someone's gonna have a helluva time trying to improve it in any case. Sorry, it's close to impossible to try to offer helpful comments at this stage: you know the game so well by now that random ideas are unlikely to hit the mark. :( :=)
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.
Glad to have you with us! This TAS will get revised at some point because some tricks are known that will save a little time in the earlier levels. Look out for more TASes like this cause you might be able to participate even if you don't wanna work with emulators. Here's the databank that was collected for this game in case you missed it. http://tasvideos.org/GameResources/DOS/Jetpack.html
