Submission Text Full Submission Page
Author's comments about the run: I'm Sonic Adventure 2 speedrunner. I recently started to learn TAS, and I've got an idea to work on the game I really liked to play many years ago. There was a Tool-Assisted Speedrun made by Meesbaker in 2014, but the only TAS tool he used was savestates. Unfortunately, his run was unacceptable for TASvideos because of innacurate emulation, so, I wanted to make a new one.
Generally, my timesave over the previous run came from using frame-advance and rerouting each level myself. Every shot in my run is perfect/max-damage, unless it would cost time to do so. In total I saved 4 minutes and 36 seconds over the previous run, which is very significant because I lost ~17 seconds on load times for each level (which is over 7 minutes for the entire run) due to more accurate emulation.
Special thanks to Drakodan, who fixed all the mistakes in this text.
  • Full Category name: Any% (Half Health).
  • Rerecords counter: 2979.
  • Time by speedrun.com rules: 1:01:43 (The run starts after selecting "no" when you are asked to play the boot camp level, and ends in the last mission when mission accomplished shows up in the middle).
  • Team color: red (Piggystroika).
  • Team name: Wan Wan.
  • BIOS used: SCPH-5502/SCPH-5552

Final ranks:

1. Hero.
2. Hero.
3. Pyrotechnic.
4. Pyrotechnic.
5. Pyrotechnic.

USED GLITCHES AND TACTICS IN THIS RUN

1. Half health glitch. To activate this glitch, you must change the pig health in the Multiplayer options to half before entering Single Player mode. This glitch does not affect the the health of vehicles, artillery and shelters. This glitch only works on the PAL version of the game. It generally makes the run a lot faster.
2. Disabled voices. The pigs' voices are active by default, which leads to delay before every attack. You can disable it in the menu during any level.
3. RNG manipulation. This is the hardest part of optimization. In TAS conditions, you can make your units act super fast, but the AI may respond differently. It's very tricky because literally everything has an effect on the AI's decision on what to do during his turns. Generally - I moved my units to specific positions, or sometimes I can hold X during the AI's turn to change its targeting. Long story short: the AI has 2 options on what to do during each of his turns. You get the first option if you press nothing, or you get the second option if you hold X during the AI's turn. It can change the AI's walking route, aiming and it even can make the AI not attack you (By using "Hide" option for Snipers). If neither of those 2 options are good for you, you need to play differently on this mission (Or even have different ranks/promotions because the amount of health in your team affects AI behaviour). Fun fact - you can even manipulate the way that the anti-P mine will blow up by just walking differently at the end of your turn. I explain it below on the Glacier Guns mission.
4. Death animation cancel. Normally, after decreasing a unit's health to 0 or lower, you get an extra death animation. This animation can take different amounts of time, but it's generally at least 3 seconds long. You can prevent it if you make a unit drown, land in a minefield or deal a massive amount of damage to blow the unit up instantly.
5. Wall Climbs. Occasionally it is possible to climb up slippery slopes which you shouldn't usually be able to climb, this is is done by walking towards a wall at an angle allowing you to climb the adjacent slope.
6. One-mine explosion on pillbox. You can make anti-P mine (Or regular mines too? Never tested it.) blow up even if you use only one of them on a pillbox (Or potentially other artillery too). If you lay a mine on a slope it hovers in the air which makes it detonate, so you can attack somebody else on the same turn. This saves a turn on Glacier Guns. Thanks to Meesbaker for good explanation of it in the previous TAS video documentation!

DETAILED DOCUMENTATION

Generally team color and team name doesn't change anything in gameplay (unless you use one of 3 very specific names), so it's just personal preference.
I'm presenting squad ranks and formations for the missions in this format:
G/S1/B3/C/H
Number of symbols means number of team members I have for this mission (it's almost always 5). Abbreviations:
  • G - Grunt: Unit without any promotions.
  • S - Sniper: Units with Sniper's career path. Number stands for promotion's Tier: S1 is Scout, S2 is Sniper, S3 is Spy. Very unique class: Units are invisible on mini-map during opponent's turn, and has an ability to Hide by using camouflage which also works like armor - you can destroy it by dealing at least 20 damage.
  • B - Bombardier: Units with "Heavy Weapons" career path. Number stands for promotion's Tier: B1 is Gunner, B2 is Bombardier, B3 is Pyrotechnic. Most universal class because these can hit enemies across the entire map for high damage and almost never need to walk anywhere.
  • C - Commando: Top-tier unit which you get after Tier 3 of any career path. Has huge inventory, can detect mines and can swim without losing health.
  • H - Hero: Best possible unit you can get in story mode. Next promotion after Commando. Has the same abilities but bigger inventory. Most important weapon - Airstrike.
Medic and Engineer career paths are not used in this run.
Units generally have more health points and weapons after each promotion.

Part 1: HOGSHEAD

Obviously the easiest part of the game. You don't have any top-tier units to play against at the beginning of the game, so all units have low amounts of health. The AI's aim is also pretty bad. You also have huge amounts of time for turns (up to 99 seconds), so you want to prevent the AI taking long turns.

Mission 1. THE WAR FOUNDATION

Squad: G/G/G.
I disabled voices at the beginning of it, then just used 3 grenades to kill each of 3 enemies in one turn.
Only one thing I can mention - I held X during last AI's turn because this guy likes to walk around before attack if you don't do that.

Mission 2: ROUTINE PATROL

Squad: B1/B1/G/G/G
I promoted 2 Grunts to Gunners, and can now OHKO everything with Tier 1 promotion on the AI's team.
I want to kill the only enemy Gunner first, but I also have to walk slightly towards the lake, so that the closer AI's Grunt will focus on my Gunner instead of walking around.
On the second turn I want to kill the farthest Grunt, because his turn is much longer than the closer Grunt (At least, if my units are close enough to be instantly shot with the rifle). I also move slightly forward to change the AI's target so that he won't kill my Gunner with the second shot.
The third turn is a simple grenade throw.

Mission 3: TRENCH WARFARE

Squad: B1/S1/B1/G/G
I used only one of 2 promotion points to get my first Scout, because I only need 3 turns to beat this mission.
On the first turn I instantly kill the Grunt who acts first in the AI's squad. He is in the middle of map, so he can't attack anyone quickly and usually walks around until he's able to hit somebody with a grenade or find a weapon box containing a cluster grenade.
Instead of the Grunt, the AI thus will use his Gunner first. This is important since they have the bazooka, so they are likely to act faster than units from any other career path, so I'm totally fine with letting them act.
On my second turn I move to another corner of the map and throw gas to poison two Grunts. This walk wastes a little bit of time, much less than letting the AI's Grunts act instead. Poisoning both Grunts forces the AI to skip the next 2 turns.
My third turn is as simple as the first - I instantly kill the AI's Gunner and wait for the final Grunt to die because of the gas.

Mission 4: MORNING GLORY!

Squad: S1/S1/B1/B1/B1
I used all of my promotion points to upgrade each of my units to Tier 1. You can clearly see why I use these specific career paths in this mission.
I really like how optimal this mission is in my run. First thing I want to mention: I have to fight against five units, and all of them are placed across the whole map, so I can't really get under 5 turns. My target is getting the fastest possible turns for myself and the AI.
I fight against 2 Grunts and 3 Gunners. On the first turn, I poison the Grunt who is supposed to act first, so the AI's turn is cancelled.
Same for the second turn. It's funny that you can still hear the intro music until the second Grunt dies.
For the next three turns I need to OHKO the rest of the enemy squad. I want to kill the rightmost Gunner first because his turn takes the longest. I also want to cancel the death animation, so I shot him into the minefield.
Same for the fourth and fifth turns.

Mission 5: ISLAND INVASION

Squad: S2/G/B1/B1/B1
This mission is interesting. There are no Grunts in the enemy squad so I can't instantly OHKO two of them with the Scouts in my team, so I promoted one Scout to Sniper and switch another Scout for a Grunt, which worked well.
On my first turn I get on top of the shelter. This is important because it makes the AI's Gunners focus on this unit instead of the others, which he can actually kill with bazookas. After getting there, I no-scope shot the AI's Sapper: He likes to walk, has the highest HP, acts first and is potentially dangerous because he has TNT.
On the AI's first turn he does a shot which looks dangerous because of the amount of damage dealt. It actually puts two of my weak units into safer spots, which is great!
On my second turn I kill the weakest AI unit, which is the Orderly with 30 HP. It's possible to deal 30 damage to him, but I detonated the grenade slightly earlier which blows him into the water, cancelling the death animation.
On my third turn I force one of the AI's Gunners to die in the water as well.
On the AI's third turn, he reveals a hidden Scout in the far corner of the map. This guy is annoying - considering he is hidden I need to deal 57 damage to instantly kill them, and none of my units can do that in this mission. So there's no way to avoid his long turn without spending an extra turn. I kill him on my next turn.
The last turn is simple - I kill the last Gunner in the water.
Hogshead falls!

Part 2: SAUSTRALIA

This part is as simple as Hogshead, but it's even faster. The AI's aim is still bad, so it's not a threat yet.

Mission 6: UNDER SIEGE

Squad: B2/B2/B2/S2/S1
I promote all my Gunners to Tier 2 Bombardiers, so all of them now have access to mortars and slightly higher HP. Mortars are always faster for long shots because you don't waste time charging. Mortars also deal more damage (Up to 50), so I will use it a lot.
On this mission I fight only 4 units, but all of them are Tier 2: 2 Snipers and 2 Bombardiers. The Snipers are hidden at the start.
First of all, I want to mention that the AI uses a Sniper on his first turn, which consistently walks forward and shoots the first unit in my squad. I know that it's possible to make him hide instead of walk, but I wasn't able to get it. I'm not sure why, but I tried different ways. The reason might be a different promotion strategy (I didn't upgrade my Scout), but it never worked with my current squad.
On my first turn I used the bazooka instead of mortar because I had to spend some time to protect my unit from the Sniper's shot (he ignores all buildings for some reason), so I had time to charge my shot. The bazooka itself can't kill them because they have 45 HP now, and the max damage for bazooka is 40, but I forced the AI into a minefield.
My second shot is a mortar hit, which deals max damage and sends another unit into the minefield.
My third shot is another mortar hit with max damage. Unfortunately, the minefield is too far away in this case.
On the next turn, the AI decided to hide for some reason. So I've got an instant AI turn, but instead I have to deal 65 damage to kill him on my next turn, using the Sniper. The only way to do that is with the super airburst in the minefield, so I got that. The shot was good enough to make the AI's Sniper land in the minefield.

Mission 7: COMMUNICATION BREAKDOWN

Squad: B2/B2/B2/S2/S1
I fight against a Bombardier, a hidden Scout, an Orderly and 2 Grunts, which sit inside pillboxes - the first type of artillery you meet in story mode. The Grunts act last, so you want to stay at the beginning point because the pillboxes can't hit you there, forcing them to jump out, which is great because each pillbox has 100 HP.
On my first turn I get an instant shot with the mortar on the Bombardier. I want to mention that this is first place I got a softlock when I shot too fast and made him fall into the water with more than 1 HP left. He still died, but nothing happened afterwards, the game just froze with this camera. Despite the fact that the AI's units with bazookas act faster, you need to kill the Bombardier first to finish this mission in 4 turns.
On the next turn the AI reveals his scout, whiich stands very close to the Orderly. It's a perfect opportunity to kill both of them with one mortar shot - I even managed to blow the Scout into the water.
On my third turn I do a "slightly inaccurate" shot on purpose because, again, it forces the AI's Grunt to die in the water.
I don't have mortars for next 2 turns, so on my fourth turn I did another no-scope shot to finish the last guy.

Mission 8: THE SPYING GAME

Squad: B2/B2/B2/S2/S1
The gimmick of this mission is that 2 Spies spawn if the fight takes too long (6 turns), but if you get good shots the mission is super easy.
The enemy has 2 hidden Snipers and one Medic at the beginning. Killing the Medic on the first turn with a bazooka is faster than using a mortar because of a straighter shot.
For the next 2 turns I simply used mortars. The last unit dies in water.

Mission 9: THE VILLAGE PEOPLE

Squad: B3/B2/B2/S2/S1
I needed to get my first Pyrotechnic for this mission because of HP count.
You can obtain the first airstrike here, the most destructive weapon in the game, and you can clearly see why.

Mission 10: BANGERS 'N' MASH

Squad: B3/B2/B2/S2/S1
Very fun mission. There are only 3 units to fight, but one of them is a hidden Scout, and the other two are Gunners which sit in artillery (which have 50% less HP than normal for this mission).
On the first turn I use an airburst with my only Pyrotechnic, and the Scout instantly dies.
The AI manipulation is very strange in this game. If you exit the medic tent on the first turn, the first Gunner doesn't like using the artillery, so he jumps out instead and uses the bazooka, making him a very vulnerable target. I exploited this and shot him with a mortar.
The second AI Gunner is smarter, so he keeps shooting from the artillery until it gets destroyed. I used the mortar and sniper rifle to deal enough damage (No-scope can't hit artillery from my position, so I spent a few frames to actually aim my shot).
On my last turn I used the rifle as a mortar because it's funny. And faster. Maybe.
Victory in Saustralia!

Part 3: TROTSVILLE

Missions are getting harder to optimize, but the AI is still pretty weak.

Mission 11: SAVING PRIVATE RIND

Squad: B3/B2/B2/C/S2
I promote a Sniper to Commando (So I finally have access to a bunch of powerful weapons for any situation) and Scout to Sniper. Switching the Commando to the first slot is not necessary yet.
Your unit placements on this map are based on your ranks - the most promoted one is in the middle of the map, hidden in the shelter. The Sniper is always in the far corner of the map.
There are 4 hidden Snipers around the middle of the map and one Bombardier who is far from everyone. I kill him first with a mortar. You can also softlock here if you attack too fast. For the next turns I want to kill enemy units as soon as they're revealed from camouflage.
On my second turn I simply kill a Sniper with a max-damage shot. I tried to blow him into the minefield, but it's too far.
On my third turn I kill another Sniper which failed to hide, making it possible to send him into the minefield.
I hate the next AI turn. It's the dumbest turn of the run. He legit tried to poison my Commando inside the shelter.
Fourth turn: Time to shine for the Commando! I have access to a cluster grenade, and it's very good for dealing a lot of damage in one turn.
The last Sniper refused to attack my Commando, so he kept hiding when I deal damage with combined sniper rifle and mortar shots.

Mission 12: JUST DESERTS

Squad: C/B2/B2/B3/S2
Pretty tricky mission.
There are 2 hidden Spies which REALLY like to run circles before attacking, so, I put my Commando in the first slot to jump into an enemy tank and make them focus on him. The jetpack makes the first turn faster.
I take the far-right tank and kill one of the hidden Spies with an airburst. Moving forward a bit is required to manipulate another Spy and make him jump into the closest tank.
The first AI turn is funny. I prevented the Spy walking around, so he took another tank, but then he calculated that attacking my Commando will deal more damage to his own team, so he skips his turn.
On my second turn I just try to deal as much damage as I can with a quick mortar shot.
On the second AI turn he uses a flamethrower on the Commando's tank. It's the highest damage (102) he could deal, so my Commando keeps sitting in a tank with only 8 HP left.
I do the same mortar shot on my third turn, making sure that the Commando's tank is still not destroyed (1 HP left).
The AI's unit takes the last tank and skips his turn for the same reason as before.
Fourth turn: the moment of truth. I use an airburst to destroy everyone and everything, except my Commando.

Mission 13: GLACIER GUNS

Squad: C/B2/B3/B3/S2
This is the first of the "3 most difficult missions" in the run.
I had to be very creative to figure out what to do. I replayed this mission several times and chose the fastest result that I got.
There are 5 Gunners on a very open map, each of them inside a pillbox.
On my first turn I used a jetpack to grab the unique "Anti-P Mine", then used a trick to blow up the left pillbox. Usually, a single mine won't detonate, but placing one from the slope makes it hover in the air, which makes it blow up after my turn. After this, I used a cluster grenade to destroy another pillbox, placing my Commando in a very visible spot so that the AI can focus on him.
On my second turn I used a pistol shot in bazooka style to kill the 17 HP Gunner.
Remember that the flamethrower can deal over 100 damage to vehicles? That's what I did on the third turn with the closest pillbox. The Gunner inside this one is supposed to act next - and his turn is very quick because he focuses on the closest unit.
I wasted over 2 hours for the shot on my fourth turn - this is the most precise non-airstrike shot of the run. There are no visual cues if you miss your shot, so I was happy when I finally got this. Sniper's turn: I could've just sniped the close 17 HP Gunner, but I used gas instead because it cancels the AI's turn afterwards, so it's faster.
Sixth turn: There are two 100 HP pillboxes and one poisoned Gunner left, so the only option for this turn was destroying a pillbox. The only weapon I have for this is the Anti-P Mine. There are no slopes by the last 2 pillboxes, so I just set two mines under the closest one, making sure it will not just destroy it, but also kill the unit inside. You can manipulate it by walking to different spots after you place the second mine. It can work on the first turn too, but I needed to put my Commando in a visible spot for the AI.
Last 2 turns: I used combined mortar and airburst shots to deal enough damage to destroy the last pillbox and the unit inside. Airburst shots are done in mortar style because I need to keep the Gunner on the same spot after the first explosion, then it dealt more damage and sent him into the water.

Mission 14: BATTLE STATIONS

Squad: C/B3/B3/B3/S2
Super simple mission.
I promote my last Bombardier to Pyrotechnic so that I have access to airburst on my first four turns. Two turns is enough to beat this mission.

Mission 15: FORTIFIED SWINE

Squad: C/B3/B3/B3/S2
As simple as the previous one.
I ran (it's slightly faster than using a jetpack) to the airstrike box as the Commando and used it to kill the first 3 units, then used a mortar to kill the last Spy.
Trotsville taken.

Part 4: BELLYOPOLIS

Some missions are legit hard to beat fast now. The AI's aim becomes insane.

Mission 16: OVER THE TOP

Squad: H/B3/B3/B3/S2
I promote my Commando to Hero which finally gives me access to airstrike.
This mission is as simple as the last two: Combined airstrike and mortar shots kill everyone before the AI's support will appear on the map.

Mission 17: GENEVA CONVENTION

Squad: H/B3/B3/B3/S2
Airstrike, airburst, airburst.
One special thing I noticed about this mission: You CAN'T get the survival bonus even if your entire team is alive when you use the half health glitch. It looks consistent because I checked every other run I was able to find, and nobody got this bonus on this specific mission.

Mission 18: I SPY...

Squad: H/B3/B3/B3/S2
The second of the "3 most difficult missions" in the run.
I had to replay this one dozens of times to find the fastest way. There are 5 Spies across the map and they're all hidden. Since the AI's Spy units like to walk around a lot, it's really hard to manipulate them.
On the first turn I use a cluster grenade to kill the Spy who is supposed to act second. The position I have changes the first Spy's decision and makes him throw (and miss) a poison gas grenade.
It's pretty hard to deal 60+ damage to a single unit using the mortar, but I managed to do it on the second turn.
On the third turn, all the enemies are hidden, so the fastest way to kill one is to land a precise airburst shot on the closest Spy for exactly 80 damage.
On the next turn, the Spy failed to hide, so another difficult shot with a mortar kills him.
There is only one Spy left on the opposite side of the map. This one is very strange. I originally wanted to skip a turn as Sniper, then OHKO him using Hero, but this guy kept hiding before the Sniper's turn, then walking around for 25+ seconds on the turn before the Hero, so I had to move my Sniper and decrease the Spy's HP by 20 with another no-scope. It made the AI hide again.
I used an airburst on the last turn because it's slightly faster than airstrike.

Mission 19: CHEMICAL COMPOUND

Squad: H/B3/B3/B3/S2
This mission isn't difficult, but it is annoying.
First of all, I wasted 2 seconds walking with ther Hero on my first turn ONLY because of softlock prevention, then I used a very precise airstrike to kill the Medic and hidden Spy.
The AI's Commando is placed in a VERY uncomfortable position: Most of my shots would make him fall somewhere on the low ground, which makes a OHKO impossible for Pyrotechnics. So, I used two combined mortar shots to kill him.
The goal was to beat this mission in four turns. I used many different attempts to OHKO the last Pyrotechnic, but my best result was 59 damage with an airburst (40 from the main shot, 10 + 9 from shards while he is falling). So, to kill him in one turn I decided to use a wallclimb, jump over a mine and use an airstrike.

Mission 20: ACHILLES HEAL

Squad: H/B3/B3/B3/S2
Stupidly simple mission.
You can easily kill 3 of 4 Surgeons with an airstrike: Either the 3 left or 3 right ones. I chose to kill the 3 right ones because the leftmost unit acts way faster than the rightmost one.
On the second turn I do the most precise mortar shot in the run: 50 damage from the first hit, instantly followed by 20 damage from shards.
Bellyopolis is ours!

Part 5: ARSTRIA

The hardest missions in the run. You have to fight against top-tier units and the AI's aim is a real threat now.

Mission 21: HIGH AND DRY

Squad: H/H/B3/B3/B3
The last promotion I really need in this run - I upgraded my Sniper to a second Hero because airstrike is OP.
This mission is pretty challenging. There are five hidden Commandos, so I need to get an insane amount of damage to kill them fast enough.
I tried over 100 combinations of two airstrike attacks to kill all five units, but it doesn't seem possible. The best result was when I left the rightmost Commando alive with ~10 HP. The problem with this result is that this guy likes to walk a lot, and it wastes the whole turn because he's barely alive. Instead of this, I decided to kill the two left and two right Commandos because the middle one acts faster. One dies during the death animation of another unit, so I cancelled the second animation and got a glitched loot spawn because the double spawn destroyed the parachutes.
On the second turn, the AI kills one of my units for the first time. It's possible to block his shot and prevent this death, but it would waste time and keeping everyone alive is not important anymore.
My third turn is another very precise mortar shot.


Mission 22: ASSASSINATION

Squad: H/H/B3/B3/B3
The last of the "3 most difficult missions" in the run.
This mission looks like a nightmare for optimization, but I'm very happy with the strat I found. You need to fight against only 4 units, but:
1: A Scout is hiding with extra 20 HP.
2: A Hero is sitting inside a shelter with 100 extra HP.
3/4: Gunners are sitting inside artillery with 200 extra HP each.
Destroying each artillery requires a lot of time even with the best possbile shots, so I found another way to win.
First of all, I put my Hero inside the pillbox which the Scout is supposed to take on the AI's first turn and used an airstrike to kill the Scout and deal some damage to the enemy's shelter.
The AI's first turn does a pretty dangerous shot, but he puts 2 of my units into safe positions. This is very important.
On my second turn I move my Hero to the far right corner and kill the enemy Hero with a cluster grenade. The purpose of this movement is to hide my Hero from the artillery.
On the AI's second turn, the right-hand (from my view) artillery can't deal damage, so the Gunner has to jump out and grab some loot. The closest one is a jetpack. He doesn't have time for other boxes, so he has to attack at the end of his turn. Important note - I held X during this turn because it made him attack my Hero inside the pillbox with a bazooka. If I don't do this, the Gunner uses the jetpack to get back to his artillery and runs out of time midair, which wastes even more time.
This Gunner dies on my third turn when I use a mortar.
On the third turn the AI still can deal some damage from an artillery, so he does another shot.
At this point I skip my next turn, making sure I walk forward a bit to put him in a safe position.
On the fourth turn the AI doesn't have any choice but to jump out of the artillery and take some loot. The box he picks up contains homing missiles, which are also not very good because all of my units (except the Hero in the pillbox) are hidden behind walls. So he went for another box with a jetpack and ran of time, so he had to attack the pillbox with a bazooka.
On the last turn I simply use another mortar.

Mission 23: HERO WARSHIP

Squad: H/H/B3/B3/B3
A simple, but potentially dangerous mission. You have to fight against a squad of four hidden Heroes.
You can prevent them using airstrikes if you move close to them and make them focus on attacking your first unit, but it's slow.
I used a pretty precise airstrike to make sure I kill the rightmost Hero and deal enough damage for another two.
On the first AI turn he reveals his leftmost Hero, so none of them are hidden anymore. Since I didn't get close to the enemy, he uses an airstrike. Holding X let me save a Pyrotechniic because of slightly different aim, so I only lost two units instead of three.
An airstrike on my second turn finishes this mission.

Mission 24: HAMBURGER HILL

Squad: H/H/B3/B3/B3
I felt insane grinding this mission. You have a squad of SEVEN Pyrotechnics against you. Reminder that each of them has 60 HP.
I knew that you can kill at least 6 of them with one airstrike, but I really wanted to kill all of them in one turn. I didn't even know if it was possible, but I wanted to believe it was, and tested over 100 different variations for ONE airstrike shot.
I got it.

The Finale: ISLE OF SWILL

Mission 25: WELL, WELL, WELL!

Squad: H/H/B3/B3/B3
Using special ops to reach the pillbox is faster than using a jetpack, and skips the turn.
Izzy (probably the only female unit in the game) jumps out of the 200 HP pillbox and focuses on attacking my Hero on top of it.
The next shot kills her before reinforcements arrive.
GG.

Screenshots


Memory: Judging
Memory: Hello TommyeAsY, and Welcome To TASVideos. Here at TASVideos we accept and publish high quality TASes of various games. We want movies published on this site to aim for perfection within reason. While it is understandable you might be under time restraints when it came to that marathon. However for TASVideos, you have no time restraints. Instead, we want you to take your time and make sure your TAS is fairly optimized before submitting. The rules state that the movie must be good and beyond that to not be lazy, for we will try to beat your movie. Spikestuff and yourself have both found fairly significant improvements on the TAS already. As such I cannot accept this TAS. I hope to see another much more optimized TAS of this game submitted in the future because although the TAS feels fairly repetitive to me in its current state, the idea of such a TAS is novel enough to have me intrigued.
Rejecting.


TASVideoAgent
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Posts: 15644
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #6110: TommyeAsY's PSX Hogs of War in 1:05:34.73
fsvgm777
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Senior Publisher, Player (226)
Joined: 5/28/2009
Posts: 1217
Location: Luxembourg
Hello and welcome to TASVideos, TommyeAsY. Just so you know, PAL releases of PS1 games run at ~50 FPS, while NTSC(-U/J) releases of PS1 games run at ~60 FPS. Are the glitches used in this TAS not present in the American release of the game? If not, then the American release is preferred, due to it running at 60 FPS instead of 50 FPS. BTW, you mis-interpreted the ROM filename field. You're meant to put the filename of the ROM/ISO you used, not the filename of the BIOS. This has been fixed.
Steam Community page - Bluesky profile Oh, I'm just a concerned observer.
TommyeAsY
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Joined: 9/25/2018
Posts: 18
Hello and thank you! Yeah, I know that NTSC is preferable than PAL, but there is a major glitch called "Half Heath" which is PAL region exclusive. This particular glitch is the reason why this category was separated with "normal" Any% (glitchless), which requires to use different strats such as promotion and used weapons. So, despite FPS issues, PAL is way faster than other versions. Sorry for ROM filename. Apparently, we both did changes at the same time, so I could mess it up more. I think I fixed that. If not, please, let me know. I'm kinda new to this stuff.
Player (62)
Joined: 10/18/2011
Posts: 47
Hi there! I did the editing for the submission text and am really proud to see this project realized. For those who are unfamiliar with this game, the closest parallel is Worms. In this case, Worms 3D specifically, so what you can expect to see in this movie is essentially the player playing like a perfect CPU, except for where it's slower to get 'perfect' shots. If you've ever wondered what an artillery-style game like Worms would look like if you never, ever missed and pulled off crazy exhibition-style play when possible, here's the result.
Spikestuff
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Light Spike: 50096107847681419 (2607 frames) My one concern about this TAS is that low rerecord count alongside that hour of a 3D PS1 game. Actually Question.
Team color: red (Piggystroika). Team name: Wan Wan.
Why not just choose the first choice (Tommy's Trotters) and have a single letter default team name (or writing your alias or TAS) instead of that? The latter question is asked since naming conventions usually make sense. "Wan Wan" doesn't make sense. Edit: And on the topic of the menuing... That menuing is slightly sloppy which puts concerns at other bits of this TAS for me. Here's a small clipet on just the naming your team. - Here's my input. And here's a streamable on the first menu.
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TommyeAsY
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Honestly, I'm not exactly sure how does TAStudio count attempts, considering I used playback option a lot (and it doesn't look like it add rerecords counter for this case). I put rerecords counter from .bk file, but on fact I lost my progress few times, so I had to use backups and re-do a bunch of missions again. So I lost count for at least few hundreds. Also, this game doesn't require to use analog stick, which makes optimization much easier than games like SA2. I worked on this run in particular because of special event which was a local marathon (RUSC). Long story short - WanWan is something like spirit of our community. It's most known emote and it was also a main logo. I assume that you saved menu using animation cancel. Unfortunately, I have to agree that I didn't do that at the very beginning because I figured out that's a thing after few missions. I started to use it a lot afterwards, but I met a bunch of problems with game. For example, if you get PP (promotion points) after missions, but do animation cancel, it also might cancel (or even dupe) PP, which affect future gameplay. I recorded a little demonstration here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNesnfm-Qgk Didn't expect it to be a problem since with current rules for this game run starts right after you answer "No" before going to first mission.
Spikestuff
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TommyeAsY wrote:
I assume that you saved menu using animation cancel. Unfortunately, I have to agree that I didn't do that at the very beginning because I figured out that's a thing after few missions.
I'm sorry. I'm going to have to call you out on that as you actually did do it on a few sections in the first few menus. And you don't have an explanation on character choice as it hasn't been addressed? Which I'll assume the answer to is due to the event that your run for the Hogs are based on the Soviet Union.
TommyeAsY wrote:
For example, if you get PP (promotion points) after missions, but do animation cancel, it also might cancel (or even dupe) PP, which affect future gameplay.
The cancelling can be figured out further in that section and be addressed correctly when it either brings out the worst or better for it. But if shaves frames here and there (away from duping) then that might be an important enough revision to treat this as your first attempt and to remake a new one.
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TommyeAsY
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Spikestuff wrote:
And you don't have an explanation on character choice as it hasn't been addressed? Which I'll assume the answer to is due to the event that your run for the Hogs are based on the Soviet Union.
That's correct. The marathon was local (with only russian commentary), so I chose Piggystroika because of the reason in your post.
Spikestuff wrote:
The cancelling can be figured out further in that section and be addressed correctly when it either brings out the worst or better for it. But if shaves frames here and there (away from duping) then that might be an important enough revision to treat this as your first attempt and to remake a new one.
It wasn't known in community when I found that in the middle of the run, but I noticed that animation cancel is not a problem after regular missions (not last mission on the island, when you get only 2 PP), but it's a problem on last island missions. I eventually want to figure out why this is happening, and, maybe, find a way to dupe PP on early game (after 5th, 10th missions etc), but I don't think I'll come back to it soon because of other games I need to work on. The reason is - animation cancel is not the only issue with losing PP. There is a timestamp with perfect menuing without losing PP: https://youtu.be/nlNHj9UFIws?t=24m26s I literally was not able to make first promotion even after playing the whole animation because it also led to losing few PPs
Spikestuff
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2 Things. 1) Hogs of War requires an SBI file alongside the bin/cue combo in order to get past the Piracy Check (PAL at least). 2) I've taken a look at the first level. Comparing to just our shots alone and not showing the AI's (which is pretty much the same for the most part). I didn't do the animation skipping (what appears to be) as you did, since I didn't know about it, but it can be spliced in simply (hopefully, it is just can't do ASAP since the AI acts worse). So my initial hypothesis of a low rerecord count for this hour long TAS came out unfortunately true. This is a good ground work TAS but not an optimal one unfortunately. Usermovie --- Edit: Oh, and on another note.
TommyeAsY wrote:
There is a major glitch called "Half Heath" which is PAL region exclusive.
You may have wanted to clarified this point better. The half health glitch isn't region exclusive. From your YouTube:
Николай Кузнецов wrote:
1/2 HP works in the North American version ”HoW” (NTSC), the only difference is that it does not work right away, but it's necessary to boot from the mission saving.
I'd argue that PAL is more beneficial in the use compared to NTSC. Also this game is one of the cases of PAL was developed and published first before the look over and polish on the NTSC version.
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So, is this meant to be a 3D attempt at the Worms games?
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.
Spikestuff
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Ok, now unfortunately we're at the end of this submission. ~38 seconds improved from Start to Hogshead for a test file. I've made a few mistakes which is evident in the mission by mission comparison with yours: Link to video There's one hidden issue and it's related to what the game does with controllers. I put in the analog controller thinking I would need to use it. Best controller choice is D-pad. Every time a mission is loaded the game checks and spends time figuring out what controller is inserted, d-pad is the quickest. (That's what I'm hypothesizing is the case) When doing a simple convert (which worked) when placed for a longer period of time, the game will decide to desync. Again. This is a well created first timer TAS but the issues are hard to overlook with just a quick pickup. I have provided my input for you to go over if you'd like but I do heavily suggest go over this game again and take your time from scratch. Move towards the enemy. Walk in a better direction. Don't always go full blast. Don't go on the towers. Angle your shots. And Poison chain multiple enemies. After all, it gives a sneaky victory and less effort.
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Xindictive
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I will say that most of the missions from what i saw, if not almost all, can be connected with what Spikestuff brought up. I won't go that picky on you with it, but it's noticeable for me aswell. What i will get picky with is some of your movements from Mission 10 and 11 and a movement from 13 that i honestly think wasted way too much time for a TAS. First was Mission 10 with that mortar rifle shot. It wasn't really that funny and it wasted more time than a more direct shot. Mission 11, the mortar shot where you tried to get the pig into the minefield. You say it's too far for him to reach it. Then why bother? You actually wasted time doing that, especially with the death explosion from the enemy destroying that piece of wall, that actually wasted time due to being unskipable. You could've just killed him away from the walls instead, your shot would do the work no problem. But your use of Rimski in Mission 13... i honestly think that's the biggest downfall to me. First off, you going for that health pickup. It honestly didn't do that much. Maybe it could've helped with avoiding the speed slowdown from low health, but i doubt that. But the worst part was your positioning after throwing the grenade. I don't really know what you were thinking with going right next to the pillbox there and letting it smack Rimski down the hill. The next time you used Rimski, you went all around the hill to climb back up and take care of the OTHER pillbox. I felt like you would've been better off throwing the grenade at a distance that both isn't close to the pillbox and doesn't make you fall off. Sure, he might aim at Rimski instead, which may have been a bit slow, but it still would've been faster than the 10+ second walk around you did there. And if he came out of the pillbox, which is sometimes the case when close to an enemy pillbox, that's an even better advantage to kill him off with the mortar at the end. This would've saved you more time from what i saw. As it stands, i see your Mission 13 to be the weakest because of this. Ultimately you did manage some very good runs in some missions, especially Mission 24. I was very impressed with that. But there's definitely alot of room for improvement. So i give it a meh.
TommyeAsY
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Spikestuff wrote:
Ok, now unfortunately we're at the end of this submission. ~38 seconds improved from Start to Hogshead for a test file. I've made a few mistakes which is evident in the mission by mission comparison with yours: Link to video There's one hidden issue and it's related to what the game does with controllers. I put in the analog controller thinking I would need to use it. Best controller choice is D-pad. Every time a mission is loaded the game checks and spends time figuring out what controller is inserted, d-pad is the quickest. (That's what I'm hypothesizing is the case) When doing a simple convert (which worked) when placed for a longer period of time, the game will decide to desync. Again. This is a well created first timer TAS but the issues are hard to overlook with just a quick pickup. I have provided my input for you to go over if you'd like but I do heavily suggest go over this game again and take your time from scratch. Move towards the enemy. Walk in a better direction. Don't always go full blast. Don't go on the towers. Angle your shots. And Poison chain multiple enemies. After all, it gives a sneaky victory and less effort.
Thank you for all your effort you put into it. I honestly got very few ideas not long time ago, but it felt like it would be less than 10 seconds of timesave in total. I was limited in time to finish it before marathon and, regardless of what do I know now, I think it was a good showcase for the event. But I agreed that this run has pretty big room of improvement for TAS. I appreciate the time you spent on it.
New999 wrote:
First was Mission 10 with that mortar rifle shot. It wasn't really that funny and it wasted more time than a more direct shot.
Sorry, can't agree this this in particular. Direct shot absolutely wasn't an option because of ground surface - it was between our units, so to get actual direct shot I'd have to walk for a while first. The only potentially faster option I had in my head using gas grenade - to be honest, I didn't test it.
New999 wrote:
Mission 11, the mortar shot where you tried to get the pig into the minefield. You say it's too far for him to reach it. Then why bother? You actually wasted time doing that, especially with the death explosion from the enemy destroying that piece of wall, that actually wasted time due to being unskipable. You could've just killed him away from the walls instead, your shot would do the work no problem.
My bad, this is totally my fault. I should've just come back to my previous shot with faster death, but didn't even notice wall destruction during actual run process, noticed that only when I rendered the full video.
New999 wrote:
But your use of Rimski in Mission 13... i honestly think that's the biggest downfall to me. First off, you going for that health pickup. It honestly didn't do that much. Maybe it could've helped with avoiding the speed slowdown from low health, but i doubt that. But the worst part was your positioning after throwing the grenade. I don't really know what you were thinking with going right next to the pillbox there and letting it smack Rimski down the hill. The next time you used Rimski, you went all around the hill to climb back up and take care of the OTHER pillbox. I felt like you would've been better off throwing the grenade at a distance that both isn't close to the pillbox and doesn't make you fall off. Sure, he might aim at Rimski instead, which may have been a bit slow, but it still would've been faster than the 10+ second walk around you did there. And if he came out of the pillbox, which is sometimes the case when close to an enemy pillbox, that's an even better advantage to kill him off with the mortar at the end. This would've saved you more time from what i saw. As it stands, i see your Mission 13 to be the weakest because of this.
Sorry, strongly distagree with most of this comment. I marked this mission as one of the most difficult for a big reason which is AI manipulation. I don't think you can make an accurate prediction without actual tests, because, as I mentioned before, even team formation and unit's health affects the way AI acts, so I've seen a lot of differet ways to act from AI on this mission. For example, before I did what I did on m13, I did test runs without using promotion points after m12. I was very surprised when one of AI's unit just randomly decided to jump off his pillbox and used bazooka instead, despite the fact none of my units were close. I had reasons to do certain things for every action on this mission. I know, it's not the most optimal yet - I don't think anybody know it about this particular part of the run. But there are explanations for things you mentioned above: 1. I totally didn't expect that AI gonna miss 160 dmg to my units in a row. Health kit gave me an opportunity for freedom of actions with letting AI to hit me from pillbox once. I can't say what exaclty would be changed if I'd skip this kit, but it would not be 100 % the same scenario. I'll have to do more tests next time. 2. This certain position of Rimski made many of AI's units focus on him (and act faster because of that). When he got damage with pillbox rotation - it was also a part of the route. AI didn't focus on him because my unit was moving when AI has control over his own character, so he instantly focused on another unit on middle distance. 3. The order of destroying pillboxes in certain order also was planned because of order of AI's units to act. 4. AI generally not supposed to jump off pillboxes on this missions until he'll be out of ammo (3 acts for each of pillboxes). I have no idea why he jumped off once on test run, but level layout is very opened, so it should not be the case.
New999 wrote:
Ultimately you did manage some very good runs in some missions, especially Mission 24. I was very impressed with that. But there's definitely alot of room for improvement. So i give it a meh.
Thank you for kind words, I appreciate it. I agree with your words about potential improvent in my run. It's much easier to notice like that when there is video material of full run, but it's fair, regardless.
TommyeAsY
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Spikestuff wrote:
TommyeAsY wrote:
There is a major glitch called "Half Heath" which is PAL region exclusive.
You may have wanted to clarified this point better. The half health glitch isn't region exclusive. From your YouTube:
Николай Кузнецов wrote:
1/2 HP works in the North American version ”HoW” (NTSC), the only difference is that it does not work right away, but it's necessary to boot from the mission saving.
I'd argue that PAL is more beneficial in the use compared to NTSC.
To be honest, I never knew that. I knew that it doesn't work the same way it works on PAL, but if there is another way to make Half Health glitch to work, none of community runners know about it, to my knowledge.
TommyeAsY
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Spikestuff wrote:
I've made a few mistakes which is evident in the mission by mission comparison with yours: Link to video
I don't understand one thing you did twice on Morning Glory. You got shorter animation before death cam when you used gas grenade. Did you press anything for that?
Spikestuff
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TommyeAsY wrote:
Did you press anything for that?
The same button when you kill a pig and want to get on with it. Also again, I did provide my input. (Probably wasn't noticeable in the large of text I provided, but yeah.)
WebNations/Sabih wrote:
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TommyeAsY
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Spikestuff wrote:
TommyeAsY wrote:
Did you press anything for that?
The same button when you kill a pig and want to get on with it.
Excuse me, what do you mean by that? This link is broken. Btw, it's probably better to cancel my submission. I keep getting ideas after such huge feedback and managed to save 11 seconds on 1st mission for now.
Spikestuff
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TommyeAsY wrote:
This link is broken.
Blep, should be fixed.
WebNations/Sabih wrote:
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TommyeAsY
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Update: it looks like I'm not really able to redo this run since I've got an issue similar to this https://github.com/TASVideos/BizHawk/issues/1151 And it looks like there is no known fix for many months, so idk what to do for now :/
TommyeAsY
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I found the way to avoid that issue (and it's silly - it requires to play my old movie which has markers in .tasproj but doesn't make the error to appear - and if I play my new movie - it suddenly works) and yeah, I will redo full run. That's what I got for now. It's 24 seconds faster than old run. I don't know if I can save more for this segment, but I'll try to look at it again Link to video
TASVideosGrue
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om, nom, nom... 'twas dry