For the mostpart, bosses have a small number of attacks. Chill Penguin, for instance, has his invulerability sliding, Shotgun Ice, Jump to Player, Jump to Make Blizzard, and Make Ice Penguins. Under certain situations, some of these options are not available (eg. can't make penguins if they're already there).
There are a few exceptions. Some bosses are hard-wired to start with the same move. Storm Eagle won't fly off as soon as the battle begins, and Armored Armadillo will always start by rolling around, etc.
As long as Chill Penguin is alive, he does one of these things. When he finishes (or gets hurt and stops what he's doing), he picks one at random and does it.
Example of desired behaviour during the Chill Penguin refight. In order to save a whole second off the battle, I needed him to Jump to Make Blizzard as his first move. Once that was done, simply preventing him from sliding was sufficient.
These random decisions are available to be tampered with. HOW to tamper with it is an exercise for the reader.
Good luck.
Start browsing backwards. It's in here somewhere.
I have dibs on the Any%/Minimalist run. FractalFusion has been elusive about his 100% run lately... I don't know if he's doing anything else or how well he's progressing....
Thanks, that is helpful. If I might ask one more question though, for clarification. You say you had to make him jump to Blizzard to start. At what point do you save/load so that the AI recalculates that chance? In other words, at what point are the calculations made for the move? When does Chill Penguin decide to use Blizzard Jump or whatever? This is a practical concern, obviously, because I'm not sure where I should save to cause the AI to calculate differently...
Well, as soon as you enter the door you wont be able to move before it's decided, so I'd say somewhere before entering the door.
I was actually thinking of doing this game once, but I couldn't get Vile to do as I want too in the intro stage without wasting frames so I gave up.
Personally, Mega Man X luck manipulation can be really tricky. For that one scenario, I probably saved just before the battle started. Knowing what frame number it starts on, all I have to do is shoot at the right moment. Several possible battle styles were available; I could have climbed the left or right walls, jumped at different times, etc. so I kept my options open. Once that's out of the way, events happen like clockwork.
Always keep a savestate handy well before the event in question occurs. It gives you a reaction window and enough to work with should luck manipulation be necessary.
Beyond this advice, I suggest you just try it. Get a feel for what kinds of events affect luck. Learn to spot a boss' behavioural clues. Practice is the best teacher.
Sorry to keep you guys in the dark, but I've been very busy lately so I didn't really do anything in terms of X1-X3 TAS. I was working on a Mega Man 64/Legends TAS, but nothing serious.
As for luck manipulation, it's pretty hard in the first few stages of X1. To get things at the end of the intro stage to work out feels like a major accomplishment. Anyway, I think the best way to luck-manipulate bosses is to drag X down a wall for a few frames, if there is one. It may be the dust sprite causing the change, but then the dust sprites formed when you dash don't seem to affect luck at all. If not, just experiment with timing.
I started over after finishing Sting Chameleon's level. Now I'm having a hell of a time getting Vile to do what I want. I got him to jump back and then slide up to me, but I'm having difficulty getting him to not either jump straight up after I get shot or jump back. Any tips?
Edit - Well somehow I got him to jump straight up and shoot, then walk over to me, which saved me a number of frames.
I still intend to improve my old run. This is what my highway level looks like. I havn't committed myself to the Vile "fight", but I seem to be satisfied with everything up to it. With the Vile battle, it's 10 frames faster than graveworm's movie (microstorage #385)
Do not try to bend the spoon, that's impossible. Instead only try to realize the truth.
What Truth?
There is nospoon. Then you will see it is not the spoon that changes, it is only yourself
I'm really sorry, but this is the best I can provide right now, I've been doing a bit testing, but I never make backups, but at least it should give you an idea, hopefully.
One reason my old movie was slow was because I didn't spawn the ship at the first possible frame.
http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/861/
I was playing around with Megaman X and I found that it's very hard to manipulate Storm Eagle into not starting the fly/dive attack. Can anyone give me any tips? It seems that no matter what I do past the boss intro cutscene, the pattern is always the same. Do I have to do the luck manipulation before the cutscene?
You might have to do luck manipulation before the battle. I haven't had much success luck-manipulating Storm Eagle. Not having walls to drag X down is a bad thing.
In the X series, it is rather hard to luck-manipulate.
Perhaps this would be a better topic to post in:
http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=558
Joined: 4/21/2004
Posts: 3517
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
Allow me be the first person to say wow: Wow! Its so damn impressive you've already gained so many frames on De's fine run. So if you dont gain anything by choosing any particular stage after Chill Penguin, how about you stick with the old route?
Joined: 11/14/2005
Posts: 1058
Location: United States
Great job, it is looking amazing so far. I never thought dehacked's run could be improved by this much. I really liked how you got some of the enemies to drop 1ups, was this intentional?
The next logical choice would be to do spark mandrill next due to his weakness to shotgun ice. If you did the bosses in the correct order of their weaknesses you could use the sting chameleon weapon against storm eagle and save some time. However, doing spark mandrill before storm eagle will mean his level is not 'destroyed' and could cause extra lag throughout the level and maybe lead to a longer mini boss fight.
Btw, do you ever plan to finish your 100% run?
This was my plan, but new bugs are present in this. I think I'll just abort and leave it to you. Good luck.
1) Storm Eagle before Launch Octopus. It's mandatory if you want to kill the serpant quickly. I couldn't kill it any faster with any other weapon.
2) To fulfill #1, some weakness order breaking is necessary. Storm Eagle next is popular for speedrunning because he's a big target, not too difficult once you get the dash, and is a step to get the Z-Buster early. But Boomer Kuwanger is vulnerable to amortized shots like Chill Pengiun is, and so may die a bit quicker.
3) I doubt it matters much, but if you want to shut down the electricity in Spark Mandrill's level, go after Storm Eagle before Spark Mandrill. I don't think it'll be an issue.
4) It's a microoptimzation, but if you go Pengiun -> Kuwanger, can you basically trace a circle around the stage select, somewhat minimizing cursor movement.
My intended route:
I found out that without the dash boots, jumping from sloped ground gives not only a vertical boost, but also a horizontal boost (also walking down), which on steep slopes saves about 10 frames per jump. It's even worth walking backwards for two frames on steep uphill slopes.
It's not worth walking backwards on lesser slopes, although forwards it might save a little time. I missed it once in the intro level but it's only 3 frames and I doubt I could get luck to work out again.
Also, I found out that jumping at the beginning of the level without dash boots saves a frame. The opposite is true of the dash boots. Walking off edges is also slower without the dash boots.
It just happened, so I went with it.
Technically, I could branch the any% and 100% runs here (or even later), although you probably won't like it.
I didn't get any further in my 100% run than I would in an any% run. I'm not sure if I will pursue the 100% now. Maybe later if I have the time.
I will probably go with Boomer Kuwanger next. As DeHackEd already mentioned, defeating the sea serpent takes long without the Storm Tornado, and Boomer Kuwanger takes 3 damage from charged X-Buster.
I was thinking about doing MMX 100% if anyone else isn't going to. Mainly for more practice in boss manipulation. My question is should I use the SDA 100% route? That is..
Chill Penguin - > Storm Eagle - > Flame Mammoth - > Spark Mandrill - > Armored Armadillo - > Launch Octopus - > Chill Penguin again - > Boomer Kuwanger - > Sting Cameleon - > Spark Mandrill again - > Armored Armadillo again.
I can't see any other route working. Feel free to point out of I'm wrong though, or any other helpful info.
do boomer kuwanger before storm eagle i think so you can use the boomerang to pick stuff up without having to backtack/lose time.
Please do it though, I"ve waited for a 100% run of this game for a while!
Do not try to bend the spoon, that's impossible. Instead only try to realize the truth.
What Truth?
There is nospoon. Then you will see it is not the spoon that changes, it is only yourself