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Posted: 3/22/2020 12:41 PM
(Edited: 7/16/2020 1:33 PM)
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WarHippy
Skilled player (1020)
Joined: 1/9/2011
Posts: 230
Arcade TAS of 2023 Exotic platforms TAS of 2020 Exotic platforms TAS of 2020 GBA TAS of 2018
Now that I'm back from the Dream Team Contest 8 I can make headway into project again. Muscle Tower is completed 94 frames faster than the published run. In total, I'm 269 frames ahead. After getting the lvl. 3 Ki blast I choose to not to charge up a shot because I was losing a bunch of frames to lag. I still ended up 3 frames slower after the fight. I ended up 4 frames faster after the second fight. I needed one less hit against the two robot enemies at the end of the fight since they spawned closed together. 14 frames lost after the third fight mostly due to more lag from more accurate emulation. There's a bunch of RNG manipulation before the screen transition. It costs a lot of time, but it's well worth it for the next fight. The 1st Mini-boss fight against a big bruiser (Lieutenant Metallic). I discovered a new quirk in the boss's behavior. He will execute a chain of attacks with very limited move sets. In this chain he will start it with a Missile or an Overhead Pound. RNG will then determine if he then does nothing, fires a missile, or does an overhead pound. He will keeping chaining these attacks until the RNG picks the 'nothing' option, so I keep manipulating him to fire missiles all fight so that I can reflect them. 73 frames saved in this fight. 11 frames were saved in the fight before the second transition. In the published movie I punch an enemy near the end of the fight for RNG manip. This delayed the body from hitting the ground and disappearing so that the next wave of enemies could spawn. I didn't realize the spawn time was related to the bodies fully disappearing during that part of the fight. Saved 5 frames in the second phase of the Murasaki Ninja fight. I needed to use one less hit on the group of 3 ninjas since they were closer together. I saved 19 frames in the next fight by getting all of the enemies to spawn on the right side of the screen. In the published run there was one set that spawned on the left side. Saved a few frames by taking out one set of enemies with regular attacks instead of waiting to reflect a grenade. Minor changes to the boss to maintain good RNG damage manipulation. That's it for now. Halfway through this next level is where my sync ended in trying to get the published run synced to BizHawk 2.4 (mGBA 0.8). There was a change in RNG that I couldn't duplicate in mGBA 0.8. There had only been changes in the amount of lag up to this point. I tried syncing this new run on the latest dev build of bizhawk which has mGBA 0.8.1. It unfortunately desynced on level 1, but hopefully it's only just lag frames. If there's a change to the RNG, then I don't know if I have it in me to re-do the whole run... again... We'll see Until next time!
Posted: 3/29/2020 12:51 PM
(Edited: 7/16/2020 1:33 PM)
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WarHippy
Skilled player (1020)
Joined: 1/9/2011
Posts: 230
Arcade TAS of 2023 Exotic platforms TAS of 2020 Exotic platforms TAS of 2020 GBA TAS of 2018
I just beat Tao Pai Pai again which is originally where I left off to start this TAS all over again with a new strategy for the one-on-one fights. In total, I am 1019 frames ahead of the published run. Note that the total in-game improvement is closer to 1100 frames. I lost ~100 frames to lag from more accurate emulation, but I don't know how to figure out the exact amount. Underwater Caverns pt. 1 - The bulk of improvements in this level over the published run can be found here. Nearly every fight in this level was improved beyond that by either spawning enemies on the optimal side of the screen or better use of the ki blast. Underwater Caverns pt. 2 Above Ground - Not much change compared to the previous improvement of this section. Just some different RNG manipulation. Underwater Caverns pt. 3 - Minor improvements and RNG manipulation Tao Pai Pai (1st time) - Minor changes Catch-a-kitty - I was able to manipulate every spawn to be an instant appearance instead of a slow fade-in. Tao Pai Pai (2nd Time) - 223 frames saved by keeping him on the ground and using ki blasts for optimal damage. I still feel like I can do better on this fight, so I'll keep working at it before moving on to the next level (the Nimbus cloud stage) -Edit- I saved an additional 94 frames by changing the ki blast pattern which caused a better set of movements from the enemy.
Posted: 5/5/2020 8:50 AM
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WarHippy
Skilled player (1020)
Joined: 1/9/2011
Posts: 230
Arcade TAS of 2023 Exotic platforms TAS of 2020 Exotic platforms TAS of 2020 GBA TAS of 2018
This run is almost complete. I'm now at the final battle with Piccolo, and I just got the run fully synced on BizHawk 2.4.1 (mGBA 0.8.1). In a pleasantly surprising turn of events I removed all the lag frames that were created from syncing to mGBA 0.8. Expect a completed submission by the end of the month!
Posted: 6/2/2020 10:52 PM
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WarHippy
Skilled player (1020)
Joined: 1/9/2011
Posts: 230
Arcade TAS of 2023 Exotic platforms TAS of 2020 Exotic platforms TAS of 2020 GBA TAS of 2018
While writing up submission notes I accidentally found another 200 121 frames of savings on the mini boss in the Underwater Caverns... yay? Anywho, I've been working on getting the RNG to sync up instead of re-doing half the run again. -Edit- I meant to say I saved around 2 seconds, not 200 frames. I also was finally able to get the RNG lined up, but it de-synced again halfway through the final level when I got another purple turtle shell. As a side note I'm now only 102 frames ahead. I lost 10 frames to RNG manipulation and another 9 frames from extra lag. Re-doing half a level is just going to be easier than getting the rng lined up again, especially since I'll be getting a second purple shell later in the level. There was one part of the final fight with Piccolo that seemed slow, so hopefully this change in rng will allow for an ideal fight.
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