Joined: 1/16/2008
Posts: 358
Location: The Netherlands
Thanks Phallosvogel
Need some help here :P I seem to have some troubles descending with the rocket belt...
From what I can tell:
The player accelerates downward (aka falls) much faster when not applying horizontal jets... similarly, weak jets allow faster falling than strong jets
This is why I first use weak jets to build downward momentum and then burst towards the final (other way around is way slower)
So what's the problem?
Here's a non-TAS movie where the (same) character descends way faster without having to sacrifice any speed (and it seems a 18-19s landing would be possible)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1AosjrXmsI
here's mine:
http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/691521187/PilotWings64-TAS-DaTeL237-WIP.m64
Anybody know what I'm doing wrong? (perhaps a difference between PAL/NTSC?)
btw Stefan Mahrla happen to be anyone on TASvideos?
Well, this is his profile, but I doubt he still visits this site but I could be wrong...
Yes, you are wrong^^ I still visit this site, it's just that I have never done a TAS, so I don't post much.
DaTeL237 wrote:
edit3: Okay I realize Stefan Mahrla doesn't claim his vids to be speedruns but they are the fastest times I could find.... anybody got better ones?
note: All times are for perfect-score runs
Yepp, I just wanted to do 100 point score runs, but because I'm usually a time trial/speedrun player I at least tried to do these runs "semi-fast" (just getting 100 points would be boring, especially in the earlier missions).
Anyway, because you are asking for faster vids: during the time I played Wave Race time trial, I was in competition with a japanese player called "Sage327". I'm not sure anymore, but either him or me once made a PW64 vid and the other guy said that he also has the game and will try to beat the time in the vid. We were not aiming to get the best possible times, just to get 100 points and find some nice strats to beat the other guy. I doubt that any other person really tried to speedrun PW64, so you can probably use our times as a reference.
Sage327 only has a few vids online on his youtube account, probably because I beat his other times and therefore he never uploaded them to youtube. His vids can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=WRBS327&view=videos&start=100
And to answer your question from the youtube pm (I hope it's ok to quote you):
Hello,
Currently I am looking into a TAS of PilotWings 64 and I'm using your videos for reference a lot. I have a question about the controls for the rocket belt that maybe you are able to answer. In your "Balloon Crash" vid, you burst backward (from what I can tell full throttle) after hitting the balloon... however when I try similar movement, the (same) character does not fall fast enough and overshoots the bull's eye by miles.
So my question ... do you know what might be the difference between your approach and mine?
For reference and to watch my current WIP (unfortunately I cannot encode so I can only provide *.m64 files)
http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=205117#205117
Hope you can and are willing to help out,
Thanks,
DaTeL237
Well, that's what I do in the vid:
I fly to the balloon, then press Z for a short moment to brake/stabilize (and turn a bit to the right, to "align" with the goal) and then I hit the A button again to fly backwards to the goal. Now as far as I remember, the important part is to hit the balloon while flying forwards without moving upwards 1-2 seconds before hitting the balloon. Hmm, it's hard to explain.
Maybe that's a better explanation:
You fly upward for 3 seconds and then press forward to fly forwards, then you still gain altitude while flying forward for 1-1,5 seconds. Next time you fly upward for 1 second and then fly forward again, then you only gain altitude for a short moment. And the 3rd time you don't fly upward, you just fly forward, stop for a moment and fly forward (or backward) again, so this time you don't gain altitude.
Now let's come back to this mission: I fly upwards at the beginning and then 2-3 seconds before I hit the balloon I just start to fly forward to not gain altitude anymore (well, I correct myself for a really short moment, although I would probably have hit the balloon anyways). So then when I fly back, I just decrease altitude. I haven't seen your TAS, but that's the only mistake I can think of (that you maybe hit the balloon while still in an "altitude gaining position").
A few other things to note:
- sage327/me never really did any character comparisions, so I don't really know who is the fastest, who falls/rises the fastest, who accelerates the fastest, and so on
- there's one Hang Glider mission where you had to land exactly after 3 minutes -> afaik the game still gave you the full points for the time, when you landed 3 seconds earlier or 3 seconds later (2:57 or 3:03), so when you landed at 2:56 or 3:04, you only got 99 points or when you landed at 2:55 or 3:05, you got 98 points, etc. -> so try to land exactly at 2:57:00 for the best time (or try to find the best time, that still gives you 100 points, but I'm pretty sure that it is 2:57:00)
- don't forget to use the C-buttons for the photo missions to take pics
- I think you can hit Hawk (Gyrocopter missions) in 1 attempt (just manipulate him to run towards you, so that you can easily hit him 5 times)
- you can open your paracute really late in the sky diving missions and still get a perfect landing
- I also heard that you can crash into the bulls eye at full speed with the hang glider and get a perfect landing, however I'm not sure if that is really true (I think someone on gamefaqs once said that)
- you know that shortcut for the Jummble Hopper mission, don't you?
PS: I will try to get the WIP to work, want to see how you did 29 seconds on the first mission^^
Joined: 1/16/2008
Posts: 358
Location: The Netherlands
Thanks Mahrla! Did quite some attempts and I cannot find a way to properly descend.... so I think I'll settle for the current result. Improved BalloonCrash to 19"99 without using Z button (hover) at all.. it looks slow however because I have to stop bursting 4s before landing :/
Thnx for encoding Phallos, if I try to encode to raw data (no compression) all I get is black video (with correct audio) :(, I see you encoded the old one though ;) it has a better (closer) landing now.
Now I'm having a go at Novice Rings, like almost any race-game.... it's really hard to tell what's the optimal approach :x
edit:
right now I think the best is to...
Use a light character (top left one) to make smaller turns
Full Throttle all the way until touchdown, then brake
pass 2nd ring while turning right, then turn left to pass the 3rd (to be turning earlier)
steer upward just before passing 3rd ring to lose speed (not energy) & have a smaller turning circle
steer back downward to regain speed a bit before the island comes back in sight and get close to runway altitude
late sharp turn to align with runway (touchdown in middle and end up in middle)
edit2:
ok i finished the 3rd level quite some times now and had to throw them all away due to desynch issues.... i'm giving up on this game
If you reach around 600 kmh and hold left/right to go in a circle, the speed increases faster than in hell, and you can reach several thousand kmh. but you just turn faster and faster so it's impossible to escape the centrifugal forces and you get pulled in like it was a black hole, but once i escaped it and the helicopter was sideways and i flew 3700 m high (roof/sky is at 1000 m). i think the speed was 5000kmh, but dropped to 1000 in a f ew seconds
Joined: 1/16/2008
Posts: 358
Location: The Netherlands
Heh that's sick height :)
I finally managed to encode the discontinued WIP (haven't tried rr v8 though... :P) and uploaded it to youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81HwrEdy_PY
Heh that's sick height :)
I finally managed to encode the discontinued WIP (haven't tried rr v8 though... :P) and uploaded it to youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81HwrEdy_PY
Have you tried using the anti-desync mupen if it would sync better (it was uploaded in the goldeneye thread a while ago)? I tested it in pilotwings and it seems like it synced better (it could have been a placebo effect though).
Joined: 1/16/2008
Posts: 358
Location: The Netherlands
Well, having a look at the version of mupen that i can find... i don't know if there really is something like a 'anti-ds' mupen?
Here's a summary of the 4 files I have now.... it seems someone had rr-v2 and simply renamed it to anti-ds?
Of an equal amount of bytes doesn't mean it's the same thing... but it makes it much more likely (and if the anti-ds would only be a tine change (e.g. change a number from 0 to 1) then why wouldn't all versions have it)
ps. Filenames also don't necessarily indicate the right version... all these 4 files display 'v8' in the bottom of the ROM-selection screen
edit: Nope... all versions I have are terrible from a desynch POV, I did manage to improve the first test by about a second though.... had to estimate because I didn't finish the run (it desynched way before), but I cleared the 3rd ring with a speed of 130-140 :) (instead of 115ish in the first run)
Also, Rice (1964) indeed works better, but the landing targets don't have any red in them from close up :/
Wooh awesome, must be one of the best levels to TAS :)
Yeah, it's probably the level that has most competition. It's good to have something to compare to.
How much desynchs did yuo encounter?
None :P I did this pretty fast... only an hour or so. But with games that desync much, I only TAS for maybe 15 seconds at a time, and then see if it syncs, and then continue.
I'm not sure if this game emulates better in Bizhawk now that it has N64 support. I know there were a few bugs in Mupen such as a shadow glitch. Anyway, I know a great deal about this game with my experience in running the game in real time, and I would gladly help out anyone who actually knows how to TAS stuff. It seems like this game had a decent amount of interest... just figured I could try and stir it back up again.
Derek Clark also mentioned his interest in a TAS. Do you guys have some strat write-ups? I saw you SGDQ run...
Everything I have written up to this point is here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Aj6MbKAHQfv2dG1pNjBhdDJJTkQtejRZbUhLa1lvdGc#gid=1
It's not much, but should someone show interest in wanting to TAS this game, I would be willing to do some heavy research to document a bunch of useful information. There is also a ton of stuff in my head already that I should probably put onto paper as well.
