There is a second RNG in the game, which until this post I assumed only affected the items in the desert and various graphical effects. That RNG (at 03000008-0300000b) is advanced when you do your shopping, causing a desynch when the game chooses a formation.
The only way to advance that RNG before Ephraim shows up is to go into the item menu during your turn. I tested, and doing this 4 times will make Ephraim's troops arrive in the desired formation.
Man, I wish I had known that ages ago, it might have saved me from the Chapter 8 troubles I was having myself. The RNG seemed normal, but when it came time for Seth to kill the boss, things didn't go well. Thanks for the information.
Anyway, the movie looks good, but I've noticed a few things that could be changed. When manually going to Fort Rigwald on the map, you should be able to hold B, move the cursor down-left, and then press L. This should set you on Fort Rigwald, since I know a similar process works for Port Kiris with Eirika (sitting at Ide, move right, press L). I don't know if it would be any faster though.
The other thing was sending items when you have too many. Once the dialog shows up saying "Sent <item>", you can press A to skip it. Should save a few seconds, since you did it with a Knight's Crest, Chest Key, Elixir, and a Killer Axe.
You can skip sending items? I didn't even try, since you can't skip gaining items or weapon level increases.
I'll try that fort Rigwald thing. I have to do a fair amount of hex-editting for the items and wasting RNs with Vanessa instead of Tana anyway.
EDIT: @Nitrodon I didn't notice that you gave the solution to my dilemna in the post where you diagnosed the problem. Sorry for making you edit the movie...
Sorry to say this, but I'm going to have to put this run on hold until August 18th, when my summer classes end. I just have too much to do. There's a chance I'll update before then, but don't hold your breath.
I've recently been inspired, and have started again early.
I just finished chapter 11, here.
I'm not at all confident that this is optimal. Suggestions are welcome.
Next two chapters done here.
I picked up the barrier staff in order to more efficiently spam Saleh to A rank staves in time to use the warp staff.
I'm fairly certain both chapters are optimal.
I am saddened to say that unless some people here can do some serious convincing, I am dropping this run, partly due to lack of interest, and partly because I don't feel that what I've done so far meets the standards of this site, and don't really want to redo what I have so far. I feel that I didn't have enough foresight regarding items I'd need, and characters I'd use. Plus I'm starting to think that I should have been using staff users from the beginning, in order to have warp staff usage by chapter 16, which is basically impossible where I am now.
Even if the people here do convince me to pick this up again, I'd likely start over, and spend more time planning. I basically went into this run blind, which is never a good idea.
EDIT: Plus, I don't really feel like I really did enough RNG abuse. Nitrodon's FE7 run appears to waste hundreds of RNs on a regular basis, whereas I usually gave up around 20 unless I really needed the critical.
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Posts: 448
Location: Calgary, Alberta
I've noticed that no one has done any TASs of Fire Emblem: Sacred Stones despite its being on the list of ideas so I am planning to do one of it soon. Are there any ideas for character usages?
Renting this space for rent.
Trying to fix image on this site. Please cut slack.
As of April 6th, 2012:
After a long absence, here we go again?
The best characters to use are prepromotes, units with high movement, and fliers. Seth will be your main fighter for the first part of the game. Flying units with manipulated stats are extremely powerful, so train at least one of them. He/she should be promoted to wyvern knight to abuse the Pierce skill.
RNG manipulation is especially important in a TAS. The RNG state is stored at 03000000-03000005, and consists of the last 3 (16-bit) random numbers that were generated. The formula for the RNG is a simple bitwise XOR of those RNs shifted in a certain way. You can waste lots of RNs by drawing paths, and longer paths waste more RNs. Use this to manipulate stats, criticals, dodging, Pierce, and anything else you can think of.
Finally, there are some runs you might want to check for reference:
My TAS of Fire Emblem (Rekka no Ken): thread, full test run, latest WIP (chapter 10) - sort of abandoned, but I plan to continue it eventually
cheetah7071's abandoned TAS of Sacred Stones: thread, latest WIP (chapter 13)
Molotov's speedrun of Sacred Stones: http://speeddemosarchive.com/FireEmblemTSS.html
Something you'll definitely want to decide is whether you're going for least turns, or lowest time. I went for least turns, but you may decide differently.
The frustrating aspect of this run that eventually made me abandon it is that the warp staff would be required for minimum turns. However, there are no units who join with an A rank in staves. The closest is Saleh with a C, but by my calculations, he can't reach A rank by chapter 19 (the first chapter where you benefit a lot from it) in Ephraim's route, which I believe to be the faster route. I couldn't face starting over to try and get Moulder or Natasha to a high enough rank, so I gave up.
EDIT: Also note that in my aborted run, I select nearly every menu one frame too late. This also contributed to my decision to give up.
EDIT2 (...): In the WIP I posted, I wasted a fair amount of time training Franz and Vanessa, but I ended up discovering that there's not much point to doing that--you get enough high level mounted units to make them unneccesary.
EDIT3: Ok, this time I'll just leave the edit window open until I finish watching my aborted run.
I attempted to recruit every character, thinking it would add entertainment without affecting my goal (minimum turns), but upon rewatching, I think this was the wrong choice.
Another thing I did was to bring the minimum number of units to a chapter that I could get away with, forgetting that the time spent deselecting units was being wasted.
Chapter 7 might be beatable one turn faster than I did...but that would require a Vanessa capable of one-rounding the boss. I'm not sure if it's possible for Vanessa to have enough skill to critical the boss with an iron/steel lance without wasting time giving her levels, though.
Make sure to figure out how many javelins you'll need before progressing past the shop in chapter 2. I got a nasty desynch in chapter 8 after hex editting in some shopping, and plus, it's probably better to buy stuff in the chapter itself, which definitely cannot be hex editted in.
I'm still not sure whether or not recruiting Amelia is worth it. One the one hand, you have to waste time recruiting her, but on the other, the speedwings she brings allows Tana to double enemies in the next chapter.
Mines don't exist in FE8. There is a glitch where if you reset on some specific frame after an enemy moves, you can control the enemies, though I didn't use it because it would make the run completely pointless.
EDIT: also, why should we have a TAS of FE6 before the american released ones
Mines don't exist in FE8. There is a glitch where if you reset on some specific frame after an enemy moves, you can control the enemies, though I didn't use it because it would make the run completely pointless.
But a tas is supposed to do unexpected things, and utilizing this glitch smoothly will certainly give the impression of that.
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Joined: 2/13/2007
Posts: 448
Location: Calgary, Alberta
On certain missions when you have to defeat the boss, you could use the control boss glitch to make the boss drop his items and send him towards your forces for execution... That should speed up some levels.
Renting this space for rent.
Trying to fix image on this site. Please cut slack.
As of April 6th, 2012:
After a long absence, here we go again?
On certain missions when you have to defeat the boss, you could use the control boss glitch to make the boss drop his items and send him towards your forces for execution... That should speed up some levels.
[Edit]: After speaking to Nitrodon, I take back what I said about the uses of the glitch. Ask him if you want to know good places, he has good judgment.
petrie911 wrote:
Also, has anyone considered a TAS of FE6?
While Fuuin (Hard) would be interesting as well, shouldn't you have said Thracia SSS rank? ;)
I'd personally love to see Seisen, but the best I could do a while ago was sub-8 (I think)...with heavy glitching. I'm getting off-topic though, so no need to mind me.
Because of the fact that you have to reset the game to use the control enemy glitch, it would be slower in some places. In fact, it might be slower in all places, because you can just manipulate a miss so they die anyway. Of course, if they drop a great item, then you should use control enemy glitch to get the item (unless that can be manipulated too).
Also note that controlling enemies requires at least one enemy to survive the turn, so it isn't usable on turns where you want to finish the enemies off.
Also, I think that Ephraim's route is probably faster, due to having less "defeat all enemies" chapters, but this is just an educated guess.
I'll try to do a chapter-by-chapter analysis. Chapters 12 and 13 are switched for easier comparison.
Chapter 9: Eirika gets a large rout chapter, but Ephraim gets Fort Rigwald. Eirika wins, unless the enemy control glitch can be abused.
Chapter 10: Flyer abuse to kill the boss quickly. Ephraim probably wins, and he also gets Cormag and early Duessel.
Chapter 11: Rout chapter with fog of war. Ephraim wins easily, since Eirika's chapter is large and filled with walls that flyers can't cross.
Ephraim 12/Eirika 13: Charge to kill the boss. Eirika can win in 1 turn, so she wins easily.
Ephraim 13/Eirika 12: Another rout chapter. Eirika gets a large chapter with baels on mountains and a couple distant monsters who refuse to move, while Ephraim gets a lot of rivers. Ephraim wins.
Chapter 14: I'm not familiar with either chapter, but Molotov thinks Ephraim might win this one due to a more direct route.
Chapter 15: Ephraim gets both armies available on turn 1, so he wins.
Chapter 16: Eirika gets a better starting point, so she wins.
Based on this, I am unable to easily determine which route is faster.
While Fuuin (Hard) would be interesting as well, shouldn't you have said Thracia SSS rank? ;)
I'd personally love to see Seisen, but the best I could do a while ago was sub-8 (I think)...with heavy glitching. I'm getting off-topic though, so no need to mind me.
I'd like to see those, too. Although would the English translation patches be used, or would that not be allowed on the site?
While Fuuin (Hard) would be interesting as well, shouldn't you have said Thracia SSS rank? ;)
I'd personally love to see Seisen, but the best I could do a while ago was sub-8 (I think)...with heavy glitching. I'm getting off-topic though, so no need to mind me.
I'd like to see those, too. Although would the English translation patches be used, or would that not be allowed on the site?
Translation patches wouldn't be allowed on this site. It's not a big loss for Fire Emblem games, since a run would be fairly easy to follow even if you don't understand any of the text.
