As you can see from this image, the elevator room and the room containing the Etecoons are both actually the same room. Even though they are primarily separated by doors, you can access the elevator room from the Etecoons' room through a hidden tunnel above their position that doesn't involve a transition.
In the run, once Samus passes the left-most pixel of the original room as a result of falling OoB, the game considers Samus to be near them, thus causing them to sing.
I feel it's worth mentioning that there was intention, and presumably still is intention, to eventually have a "true RBO" TAS, meaning a RBO TAS that defeats Mother Brain first and then works its way through the rest of the bosses accordingly (applying X-Ray in many (much more extreme) ways to do so, of course), but who knows if that will ever leave the development stages.
I seem to remember testing the x-ray trick with plasma on Phantoon and it not working, basically even if you paused with x-ray he'd go invisible before taking the second hit. Is something special done to get around that or am I just remembering incorrectly? Maybe it's just that you have to hit him with a missile first before hitting him with plasma.
That's correct. Phantoon has to take damage from some other (weaker) source, thus initiating movement, before the X-Plasma trick can be performed.
The "purposeful hurting" is because the Metroid will attempt to routinely delatch from Samus once Samus has reached full energy again, and it's easier to manage the Metroid's position during the sequence if the Metroid isn't trying to do that the entire time, especially because if the Metroid delatches too far to the left, it will make Mother Brain incapable of striking it with rings, since her position during the sequence is somewhat fixed.
EDIT: Sniq informed me that he doesn't believe the above - which is an issue some human runners experience during the standup glitch, which is why I brought it up and assumed was the case - would've been an issue even if he wasn't self-damaging, and says that the primary reason for the self-damaging was to prevent lag.
Before death, the Metroid is purposefully positioned next to the right wall, so that the length of time it takes to swing back to Mother Brain for its killing blow is minimized.
To answer your question, it is possible to reduce Mother Brain's health to zero before the Metroid perishes, but Mother Brain will not herself explode until Hyper Beam has been gained (requiring the Metroid to perish) and so forth.
There's at least 1 no vote on every Super Metroid TAS submitted, it's really not something to be upset by, especially when it doesn't seem to have any impact on acceptance anyway. No votes would actually be more understandable this time around depending on how the X-Ray shenanigans are interpreted.
Awesome! any chance of a console verification or are we not yet at that stage with SNES runs?
That's part of the reason this TAS was created. A few months ago, the previous one (currently on site) was console unverified by total, or in other words, was proven to not actually work on console. This method should almost certainly work on console, on top of being slightly faster and not using any items.
Oh interesting. Do you have more details on why it didn't work, and/or a thread I can read where this discussion happened?
That'd be something for total (a/o possibly sniq) to answer. Total streamed his attempt at console verification, but the broadcast does not appear to have been saved. All I can say is that apparently (current) lsnes is not completely accurate when it comes to ACE in SM.
Awesome! any chance of a console verification or are we not yet at that stage with SNES runs?
That's part of the reason this TAS was created. A few months ago, the previous one (currently on site) was console unverified by total, or in other words, was proven to not actually work on console. This method should almost certainly work on console, on top of being slightly faster and not using any items.
Also, how did you do shinesparks before collecting the speed booster?
Whenever a Crystal Flash is interrupted, it gifts Samus with a shinespark suit. The Crystal Flash is able to be interrupted during Draygon's grab. In this case, Draygon will release Samus after 60 directional pad inputs have occurred, which is also related to why underflow can occur here. Sniq conveniently forces this to occur right before any Power Bombs would've been depleted by the Crystal Flash.
With the shinespark in tow, Sniq can finish off Draygon with it. When Draygon perishes, it forces Samus into a standing pose. Therefore, if Samus is shinesparking and has yet to crash when Draygon perishes, Samus will be forced out of her shinespark into a standing pose, granting her a blue suit.
Sniq then uses said blue suit to create another shinespark suit by using the broken turret electricity and abusing how the knockback timer functions. Shinespark suit saves frames over blue suit because Samus is able to run while maintaining it - if Samus with a blue suit runs for even a single frame, the blue suit will be lost. Obviously, running is fast, so shinespark suit is preferred, even if it is for the very short horizontal distances covered before its use.
Thanks everyone for the positive feedback! The bulk of the notes will probably take around two weeks to produce due to sniq's schedule, but they shouldn't be quite as lengthy as Low%'s were due to less info to provide for certain sections such as "new techniques" this time around.
McBobX wrote:
I want to vote Yes but I'm confused about the glitch used in Draygon fight.
An explanation can be found here if you're interested in reading.
The submission text has been updated reflecting the most recent change. sniq managed to save yet another frame (technically 2, but 1 got consumed by an elevator later if I understand correctly) due to tweaking the ending of Ceres.
Yes. Doing so would require adding a frame or two of extra arbitrary code inputs. Although the game would end at exactly the same speed with said inputs, the input string would be longer, so some people may consider it a longer run as a result since the inputs would end a frame or two later than they could.
So, if I understand correctly, this only saves time on morphball tunnels that you enter without using mockball (so with an unavoidable unwanted bounce/airborne time, such as when jumping into a tunnel from below), and does so by making you land sooner?
Yes. As long as Samus has a vertical speed above 0 but below 1* - even if she is moving at the slowest speed possible vertically - it will still force her to shift a pixel in whichever direction she is being told to move to and force her Y subpixel value to 65535, effectively forcing her 1 pixel downward per frame, until she has stopped bouncing and initiated her roll.
If you want an example, let's say inside a room, morphed Samus connects with a ceiling inside a tunnel at location 122. Without ball pump, Samus's position would become 122.07168, and the next frame would be 122.21504. With ball pump, her position can be forced to 122.65535, which can then again be forced to 123.65535. So on and so forth until she begins rolling.
It is an extremely recent discovery compared to nearly everything that has ever been found in this game, so it's still not fully understood by anyone yet. (sniq seems to understand the most about it at the moment)
*It would have an even greater effect if Samus's vertical speed was able to be above 1 but below 2 (or higher consistent values, which would have an additionally greater effect), but such speed is impossible to obtain in a one-tile-tall tunnel, so that's why "above 0 but below 1" is used.
moozooh wrote:
Can you describe in greater detail as to where and how it should be used?
Basically, storing vertical speed prevents a slope's 'slowdown' effect from occurring. All slopes cause some degree of slowdown. The best examples of this (although not really relevant to the run itself) are ones in sandy areas of Maridia and the ones at the bottom of the Cathedral. Samus can run up (and sometimes down) these slopes but will do so quite slowly due to their angle. Slopekiller, well, kills that.
It should be used anywhere where the time saved from performing it outweighs the time spent setting it up, assuming setting it up costs time. For example, the slopekiller performed in the first visit of the Kihunter staircase, after the spark, did not cost 'setup time' because sniq had to wait for the drop to appear anyway, and Samus moves at a surprisingly swift speed as a result.
ED, there's not much sniq can do to make aspects like Ridley/MB more entertaining than they already are. He did what he could, but they're still going to make up roughly 20% of the run regardless of the fluff inputs within.
Thanks for the response JXQ, and great question. There's a few reasons why blue suit was acquired early during Draygon:
* Draygon's second round ends much earlier by being able to have her grab Samus immediately and then shake her off immediately
* Having blue suit means that sniq does not have to use a PB in the last round to make Draygon swim up, which means holding onto one more PB and avoiding a ton of lag
* Having blue suit makes it possible to farm much more in the last round because sniq has to wait for Draygon to move far enough left before sparking anyway
* Having blue suit means that sniq can have Samus aim up in midair to continue farming without activating a spark (which is what would happen if spark suit were present instead)
* Having blue suit makes Samus invulnerable to damage while moving, so sniq is able to damage Draygon in the third round without being struck by her tail or a turret bolt
I'll update the notes at some point to include some of these, since some didn't cross my mind at the time of editing them in, and I didn't mention it to sniq, so thanks for bringing it up.
Thanks for the response Cpadolf. I have added a "Why 13%?" section. sniq is also providing me with his list of potential improvements - about half of them are listed so far.
Edit: The notes are practically done now. Only missing a few things that sniq may or may not add, such as a better explanation of what is going on in Mt. Everest / Colosseum, and some extra potential improvements.
Please elaborate on why this TAS uses certain glitches but does not use certain other glitches?
I'll elaborate on this further, in case it helps more people understand what this TAS does not use.
This TAS yields to the same constraints as Namespoofer and Saturn's 14% runs: no out of bounds, no memory corruption, no GT Code, no space time beam, no ammo underflow.
Out of bounds is usually incorporated in one of two ways - by becoming stuck inside of something like a door shell or gate and then "X-Ray climbing" to gain height from that position until you have gained enough height to 'pop out' into the OoB area, or by abusing a frame during an unpause that will let Samus pass directly through transition blocks and thus fall into the OoB area (this is what the current ACE TAS does).
Memory corruption is (excluding space time beam if you count that) currently only possible by utilizing OoB, so without OoB, you don't have this either (or ACE).
GT Code is a debug code in the game where, by holding all four face buttons on a controller during the transition into Golden Torizo's chamber, Samus will be gifted with 53% of items, which includes all major items except Screw which is nearby. This has been used twice - in Saturn's "GT Code" TAS from back in the day (before ACE was figured out) and Amaurea, Cpadolf, and Total's "GT Code" TAS.
Space time beam, which was also used in the A/C/T "GT Code" TAS, is the combination of Ice, Spazer, and Plasma. For the most part, it basically rewrites the data inside a room with garbage and resets the game state.
Ammo underflow, to my knowledge, was not discovered when those 14% runs were being developed. It can occur in a few different ways, but the most useful one involves Draygon and requires a Crystal Flash, which requires 10/10/10 minimum ammo. It gives Samus near-infinite of one or multiple types of ammo. It does not add to Samus's item percentage.
With the exception of underflow which is kinda a gray area/under debate (and to nearly everyone, would defeat the purpose of a low% TAS), the above are considered major glitches or exploits. Everything else, such as skipping Zebetites, is not considered major. Hope this helps.
Just so everyone knows, the notes are still a work-in-progress. sniq wanted to submit a bit early, so some sections aren't as clean or understandable as they'll appear later.
Also, I understand not enjoying the speed at which certain bosses are fought in this category, but I'm respectfully asking those of you basing most of your opinion on the TAS around 1-2 aspects of it to give it more of a chance, perhaps read the notes if you have a spare 10-15 minutes and hopefully you'll realize everything that's going on in the run beyond just those few aspects. (That being said, it's interesting that Maridia walljumping has seen less complaints...)
Regardless of your opinion, the attention is appreciated, and this should be obsoleting two TASes on the site once it's all said and done, and I'm sure most of you can appreciate that. =)
If you charge the beam for 16f (as indicated by 44 frames remaining on the infohud timer), interrupt the charge, then touch a door transition soon afterward, it will cause a large processing delay. Something to do with how the game processes the audio from the beam when this interruption occurs. Although it may appear that the beam is fully charged afterward, it's only a visual bug and not actually charged. It's just something for us to be mindful of so it can be avoided, unless there's something it can be combined with to produce a positive outcome or new exploit.
Whether they say so here or not, most from the "SM community" that I have seen comment think that Samsara in particular has come off as unnecessarily aggressive towards the game('s community), and feel it is further exacerbated by their lack of knowledge regarding the game, which is where the "why are you in this thread" thoughts are produced.
I think there may always be a disagreement as to why there is a restriction on categories for Super Metroid on this website, because I think the inner "SM community" does not agree with the reasoning as to why there can't be, for example, an Any%, ACE, 100%, RBO, two 13%s, 11%, and Map Completion on the website.
Not to push the issue, but I figured I'd point this out - that's only one more run than the amount that's currently on the website, and the runs I'm using as an example are, in my opinion, much more diverse than what's currently on the website. If you removed one of those (perhaps a 13%), it would match the website's current amount.
I am not saying I feel exactly the same (if what I described *is* an accurate description of what's going on), just that that's what I think I've been observing.
Just to clarify for a previous series of posts:
14% for humans / 13% for TAS is known in the community as "low% no major glitches."
Utilization of the out of bounds is considered by the community as a major glitch.
12% for humans / 11% for TAS is enough to defeat all of the bosses in the game if out of bounds is utilized. Thus, it is referred to as "low% all bosses" and provides its own unique viewing experience.
Whether you acknowledge its differences as a category, and whether you acknowledge them positively, is a different story, but "low% all bosses" is performed with 2% less items because of Bombs and another item being skipped compared to inbounds low%.
I would encourage people who are actively participating in this thread to educate themselves on categories, what they entail, et cetera before forming opinions. I hope that doesn't come off as condescending, because I truly would enjoy seeing more people educating themselves about the game, since there's so much that can be learned. There's a reason for the complexity, and it's not because Super Metroid is randomly a special snowflake amongst a sea of 2D platformers.
Also, I and others were getting the vibe that certain people participating in the discussion have a predisposition towards treating the game negatively. I hope that isn't the case.
I would enjoy seeing TASes of 13% with/without Drayflow, and 11% utilizing (what is believed or proven to be) the fastest branches, but I hope that people just TAS whatever category they want and not worry about publication.
As an aside, I wish entertainment value didn't appear to have so much weight when considering publications, and this situation made me further realize that I'm not really sure why I ever cared as much as I did about whether something is published or not here. That's not meant to be an attack towards the website, just an observation.
Thanks guys. To be fair, sniq didn't specifically take credit (and sniq does appear to find nearly everything nowadays); I just felt like responding since he didn't comment that much on it.
I do think it should see use in any category where it can be applied, just that its usefulness is primarily determined on the beams obtained in the run, so despite being elegant in appearance, it will likely save minimal time. That being said, considering how few stones there may be left to unturn in this game, I suppose it is great to hear that a handful of seconds can be saved in multiple categories at no real cost, so I probably should have phrased my post a little more positively.
There's been so many new interactions found recently (especially in the past few months) that, more than ever before, it's difficult to take it all into account and know for certain what combinations of variables results in the fastest route for a category's TAS.
