What I like about STONE is that it allows us to hedge our bets-- between STONE and SAW, one of the two is quite likely to connect.
I don't think a monster would be worthwhile, since you'd have to fight more than three battles to pump it up. Compare three extra battles versus three turns fighting SEI-RYU and it's pretty clear he wouldn't save enough time.
Gorgeous luck manipulation on the roving monster in the Underwater Castle!
Once again, you've shamed me by demonstrating you can fly around the Hidden Town in World 3. Now why didn't I think of that?
Are you sure it's faster to walk to the skyscraper rather than take the bike? It looks faster, but I'd just like to check that you tested it.
I noticed that you TELEPORted from So-Cho's grave. Did you get different results from me?
I believe the fastest way to avoid battles is to luck manipulate out of them. Starting near C323 = 161, there's a nice, long pocket where the RNG won't cause any random battles (under most conditions) until it reaches 255. If we can manipulate luck so that the RNG is anywhere near there, it will be even faster than running.
Finally, I have what is by far my most important contribution: naming. [...]
I'm not sure, but I think we might be ready to start planning for the real run. I don't know if a new test run would bring any new information, so it may be time to hammer out the details of the real thing.
0xC30B 0xC36F 0xC343
0x51 (GAZE) 0x5F (3) 0x59 (G) Common
0x51 (GAZE) 0x5F (3) 0x58 (F) Rare
0x51 (GAZE) 0x60 (2) 0x59 (G) Rare
0xF1 (P-BLAST) 0xFF (1) 0xF9 (GD) Common
0xF1 (P-BLAST) 0xFF (1) 0xF8 (CG) Rare
0xF1 (P-BLAST) 0x00 (2) 0xF9 (GD) Rare
0xF2 (P-BLAST) 0x00 (2) 0xFA (DG) Common
0xF2 (P-BLAST) 0x00 (2) 0xF9 (GD) Rare
0xF2 (P-BLAST) 0x01 (3) 0xFA (DG) Rare
0x58 (TELEPOR) 0x66 (1) 0x60 (FGG) Common
0x58 (TELEPOR) 0x66 (1) 0x5F (GFG) Rare
0x58 (TELEPOR) 0x67 (3) 0x60 (FGG) Rare
0x59 (TELEPOR) 0x67 (3) 0x61 (GGG) Common
0x59 (TELEPOR) 0x67 (3) 0x60 (FGG) Rare
0x59 (TELEPOR) 0x68 (3) 0x61 (GGG) Rare
0xE9 (TELEPOR) 0xF7 (1) 0xF1 (FGG) Common
0xE9 (TELEPOR) 0xF7 (1) 0xF0 (EFG) Rare
0xE9 (TELEPOR) 0xF8 (3) 0xF1 (FGG) Rare
0xEA (TELEPOR) 0xF8 (3) 0xF2 (GGF) Common
0xEA (TELEPOR) 0xF8 (3) 0xF1 (FGG) Rare
0xEA (TELEPOR) 0xF9 (1) 0xF2 (GGF) Rare
0xEB (TELEPOR) 0xF9 (1) 0xF3 (GFG) Common
0xEB (TELEPOR) 0xF9 (1) 0xF2 (GGF) Rare
0xEB (TELEPOR) 0xFA (4) 0xF3 (GFG) RareW1 OpenLand Forest Bandit Cave
A: REDBULL LIZARD FLY +SKELETON
B: SKELETON REDBULL LIZARD
C: ASIGARU SKELETON REDBULL
D: ALBATROS ASIGARU SKELETON
E: ZOMBIE ALBATROS ASIGARU
F: GOBLIN ZOMBIE ALBATROS
G: LIZARD GOBLIN ZOMBIE[...] I hope it'll still be a good pep talk.
Right now, I'm somewhat burnt out for this run. I need you to lead the way for the moment. Even if all you do is ask "So... What's the plan?" That's all I need, as far as I believe. This gives me a direction to reach for, something that an outside force wants from me. A destination in which I feel I can get to and tell you, "here it is."
Assemble party of four Mutants. The primary character needs to be MUTANT F, thanks to things like higher starting Agl. and the ever yummy SABER. The other three may be either gender, but I'm thinking 2 M and one F here.
Get GAZE (death), P-BLAST, and TELEPOR, in that order, by the time we defeat P-FROG bandit.
My notes indicate an optimal first reset time is 6 steps out into the overworld.
Possibly get replacement characters at this time.
Let's see... 5 GAZEs and 2 P-BLASTs means we can get another 35 Mana on our way to SEI-RYU.
If we did bring a BEETLE, we might want to fight an ATOMCRAB to change up the RNG for the well-anticipated SAW.
The turn order when we use spells doesn't depend on our Agility, but Mana instead. Or so it seems.
P-BLAST the trio of monsters. Though, one won't be enough...
Detour for Book of STONE in the hidden town.
Go straight to the key items. Do not pass GO, do not collect 200 G. Or any optional item.
We might want to avoid resetting since EVIL EYE so the RNG is good for our otherwise incompetent 54~59 Str.
We got a BAND from So-Cho.
I really think walking there is fastest. Naturally, we should time it.
More tower stuff. Probably no TELEPOR this time, I guess.
The NPC we talked to earlier doesn't exist anymore. Hence, isn't messing with our door. If we had talked to the NPC now, we must leave the area and reenter to get Tower2 working properly.
ASHURA dies to SAW. This battle may be troublesome... We might need a spare meatshield, considering my lack of any Agility and whipping won't do any good. Either that, or buff the Mutant M's Str. to 75, but that requires extra battles.
We differ on stat growth. You say we should get Str., Agl., and Mana on the same Mutant. I say we get Mana on the starter and pick up a boyfriend for this mutant and let him handle the Strength needs for us.
We differ in some battle plans. Odd, you don't have bSTONE considered. I do believe we'll need it. See my test run on the writings in action!
We differ in the use of EYEDROPs. ... I didn't need it in my test run, anyway. Silly detail, I guess.
Do we want a second character to blast things with?
Yikes! My lack of attention to this run really showed with my last post!
I somehow missed your 40 minute run. [...]
Don't forget we can luck manipulate additional charges of the spells. What slots are you expecting them in? As long as there's nothing in slot 1, we can manipulate more uses of any spell we need. I think...
All right, let me try this again... If our Mutant M has 56 Str., we can expect the three battles to last 1.786 turns each for a total of 5.36 turns. [...]
[...] Tangentially, have you considered conscripting a female party member in World 4 and giving her a WHIP? I really do love stunning enemies with the WHIP...
What if we just pick up GAZE (stone) as a mutant ability?
What are the drawbacks of that strategy?
[...] would it be possible to TELEPOR back to floor 1 after the ASHURA battle? [...]
[...] please elaborate on using the Sound Test menu to manipulate luck. [...]
[...] I guess it doesn't hurt to re-tread old ground, but I'm feeling kind of stupid for asking questions that have already been answered.
[...] POWER and QUAKE. [...]
Sounds like I should have posted before to keep you guys motivated.
Anyway, having done it myself I know that a TAS on an RPG is a lot of work.
The key is to stay organized; keep lots of notes and spreadsheets. As a team may be a good idea to keep some shared notes on Google Docs. Adelikat likes Google Code for this but I'm not familiar with it. The resources page is good too. The chart of fights is a really good idea, you should expand to track any method that you would consider and maybe what stats you'd need and how long the fight would take.
To me it seems like a flow that avoids more fights should be faster. It looks like once you get the abilities you need and some mana on one char there shouldn't be much more reason to fight.
Have you considered using POWER+battle sword on SEI-RYU? You wouldn't need to use up your P-BLAST shots.
Also, what about a human SAW user with stats pumped from STRONG and AGILITY potions? Not sure how that would compare to grooming a mutant through battle.
About the initial party, I was thinking there might be trouble killing off a few in World I if they're consistently too fast to let an enemy get a turn. The difference between M and F is that great, and since it is only important right in the first world, should we make a few tests?
My GAZE, P-BLAST, and TELEPOR plan indicates that it isn't anywhere close to impossible to do, while still wasting no steps out of the main path. Well, actually, the GAZE, P-BLAST, and TELEPOR route takes some incredible amount of luck at the TELEPOR manipulation, since you need one address to be one value and another to be something else, and in this particular case, is a very rare happening. But possible.
P-BLAST versus ASIGARU might simply be because it was faster than stabbing said foe dead. I can't remember.
Not sure what changes should be done here, really. Offense from them were practically nonexistent. But I'm starting to think a QUAKE-toting spare MUTANT would be handy.
Not that it matters too much, as if we had nothing that has uses in slot 1, the game will skip over that slot when shuffling our uses around.
Wrong idea.
I haven't considered that possibility. Stopping ASHURA's actions of doom has appeal, but I'm not sure if 52 Agl. is going to go first.
The fact I checked every single RNG value and not a single one allowed us to learn this ability.
For the secondary target-all killer, I'm thinking monster. Here's the list of things that hit all with damage:
You forget things.
POWER is of no real help. Anything that could use a good SAWing dies in one or two rounds anyway.
address C30B == 0x52 gets us QUAKE 3 "steps" down the line, while 0x53 is only 2 "steps". There's even a Mana+5 7 or 6 "steps", so we can pull that boost out from another battle without an intervening reset, assuming we use a 3 or 4 mutant party. There's potential here.
I took the test run, waited until it reached SEI-RYU, then I hacked in POWER, equipped the BATTLE sword, and gave it a good swing at the boss after the boosted strength. 230 damage.
Human + STRONG + SAW. We still have a problem at MACHINE (not enough Def for SAW to work right away from reset), but ASHURA would certainly go more smoothly, and possibly GEN-BU2, depending on resets. We just need 11 STRONGs for a Human M, two trips to the item shop dialogue.
Are you thinking we drop the Mana gains of our main Mutant in favor of SAWing all later bosses instead of bSTONE at some of them?
Awesome, glad I could be helpful. I did a test run a long time ago and used POWER on SEI-RYU. But I hadn't analyzed the game nearly as well as you guys.
The possibility of using less STONE sounds promising because it's quite a bit out of the way in World 3. It isn't very far out of the way in world 4, in the northeast town. Unfortunately there don't seem to be a lot of other options available for BYAK-KO since he's immune to death and you don't have SAW.
This game is definitely more complex than Final Fantasy for a TAS. But it's more because there simply aren't many worthwhile and easily-obtainable abilities. In this game you can easily acquire several instant death moves and there are many ways to pump up your party without spending much time. But in either case luck manipulation takes a lot of work.
[...] Since ASHURA has 90 Mana and we'll have 94 at that point, we can even STONE him. [...]
[...] Now that I look at it, we'll even have 80 Mana before the fight with the EVIL EYE, so we don't have to sacrifice our GAZE strategy [...]
[...] Let me flip it around and ask you if there's any reason not to manipulate Mana boosts from every forced battle from SEI-RYU onward. If my strategy works, how much Mana do you think we should have when we face SEI-RYU?
[...] the way I look at it, our battle with the monster trio would not really change as we were basically expecting it to take two rounds anyway. [...]
Fight random battles before the Bandit's Cave to get GAZE, P-BLAST, and TELEPOR on our main mutant. I can't remember how many battles that is, but I think it's around seven.
•Fight one random battle at some point to get QUAKE on our secondary mutant. •Fight one random battle at some point to get POWER on our secondary mutant.
Buy the book of STONE before facing BYAK-KO. Continue to force Mana bonuses for the remaining forced encounters until it is maxed out.
Draft a Human M in Northeast Town in World 4 and immediately boost him to 68 Str. with STRONG potions. Keep at least four additional STRONG potions on hand to boost him to 76 Str. after facing the MACHINE.
It isn't clear at all to me whether drafting a Monster will be worthwhile. Much of its benefit is dictated by factors that are difficult to measure. [...]
[...] How much time (if any) will it cost us to manipulate luck such that we get simultaneous Mana boosts on two characters? [...]
[...] How quickly can we kill off a character in World 1? [...]
P.P.S.-- I just noticed we can conscript a Mutant F in World 4 with built-in P-BLAST and TELEPOR and 41 Mana. It's highly unlikely that either spell will be useful, but we may need them for some strange reason. If so, that's probably the easiest way to get them.
I use this page for my monster needs.
No. oCHANGE. No stoning. No death. Only SAW.
No. We need 95 Mana for GAZE or bSTONE to work first thing. We'll need extra rounds otherwise.
26, at the lowest. Achievable in four battles with a starting Mana of 6.
On a side note, here's the list of bonuses with C30B == 0xF2 on the route to P-BLAST, if you want to consider a second P-BLAST
Actually, I'm starting to think P-BLAST is optional -- Manipulate the duet of monsters prior to STEWARD to be only 1 SKELETON and introduce it to stabby pain. A different plan for the monster trio doesn't use mutli-target anyway. But this might add an extra round to SEI-RYU, which can be hazardous.
This does free up manipulation for other things, but what do we need then?
Agreed. Looks like things are starting to fall in place, but testing needs to be done.
A few seconds, at most. The toughest piece of manipulation doesn't seem to need more than 10 seconds, and this doesn't seem to be a tough bit of manipulation, at a glance.
That's the question I would like an answer to. We might want to ask KINGSWRD if he wants to assist in an answer. Wondering how the turn order will work out, but if we can force an instant death of one of our own members just before we release our own GAZE, this would be good.
60,153,152,141, 20,225, 79,149,108,169,183, 29,187, 14,159,218,
156,185, 7, 82,116,254,239, 74,204,201,168,194, 91, 17,192, 69,
252,217,167,205,212,222,112,213,211,233, 8, 93, 4, 49, 32,154,
163,249,184, 18,203,190, 47, 10,115,246,151,130,100, 81,127,133,
67,230, 24,242,107,158,207,234, 19,214,200,157,196,113,224, 90,
28,198,135, 45, 11,126,144, 53, 76,182, 40, 66,219,145, 64,197,
124,166,216,178, 84, 94, 15,172,170,150,119,221,123,177, 95, 26,
220,134, 56,109,180, 62,175,117,243,118,232, 2, 27,209,255,250,
195,102,103,114,235, 30,176,106,147, 86, 72,226, 68,241, 96, 37,
99, 70,248,173,139, 1, 16,181, 51, 54, 87, 61,164,238, 63,186,
3, 38, 88, 50, 43, 33,143, 42, 44, 22,247,162,251,206,223,101,
92, 6, 71,237, 52, 65,208,245,140, 9,104,125,155,174,128,122,
188, 25,231, 13,148, 97, 48, 21,236, 41, 55, 98, 59,142, 31,165,
227, 57,120,210,244,129,111,202,179, 73,215,189, 36,110,191, 58,
131, 89, 39, 77,171,161,240, 85, 83,105,136, 34,132, 78,160,229,
35,121,199,146, 75,193, 80,138, 12,137, 23,253,228, 46, 0, 50x3C,0x99,0x98,0x8D,0x14,0xE1,0x4F,0x95,0x6C,0xA9,0xB7,0x1D,0xBB,0x0E,0x9F,0xDA,
0x9C,0xB9,0x07,0x52,0x74,0xFE,0xEF,0x4A,0xCC,0xC9,0xA8,0xC2,0x5B,0x11,0xC0,0x45,
0xFC,0xD9,0xA7,0xCD,0xD4,0xDE,0x70,0xD5,0xD3,0xE9,0x08,0x5D,0x04,0x31,0x20,0x9A,
0xA3,0xF9,0xB8,0x12,0xCB,0xBE,0x2F,0x0A,0x73,0xF6,0x97,0x82,0x64,0x51,0x7F,0x85,
0x43,0xE6,0x18,0xF2,0x6B,0x9E,0xCF,0xEA,0x13,0xD6,0xC8,0x9D,0xC4,0x71,0xE0,0x5A,
0x1C,0xC6,0x87,0x2D,0x0B,0x7E,0x90,0x35,0x4C,0xB6,0x28,0x42,0xDB,0x91,0x40,0xC5,
0x7C,0xA6,0xD8,0xB2,0x54,0x5E,0x0F,0xAC,0xAA,0x96,0x77,0xDD,0x7B,0xB1,0x5F,0x1A,
0xDC,0x86,0x38,0x6D,0xB4,0x3E,0xAF,0x75,0xF3,0x76,0xE8,0x02,0x1B,0xD1,0xFF,0xFA,
0xC3,0x66,0x67,0x72,0xEB,0x1E,0xB0,0x6A,0x93,0x56,0x48,0xE2,0x44,0xF1,0x60,0x25,
0x63,0x46,0xF8,0xAD,0x8B,0x01,0x10,0xB5,0x33,0x36,0x57,0x3D,0xA4,0xEE,0x3F,0xBA,
0x03,0x26,0x58,0x32,0x2B,0x21,0x8F,0x2A,0x2C,0x16,0xF7,0xA2,0xFB,0xCE,0xDF,0x65,
0x5C,0x06,0x47,0xED,0x34,0x41,0xD0,0xF5,0x8C,0x09,0x68,0x7D,0x9B,0xAE,0x80,0x7A,
0xBC,0x19,0xE7,0x0D,0x94,0x61,0x30,0x15,0xEC,0x29,0x37,0x62,0x3B,0x8E,0x1F,0xA5,
0xE3,0x39,0x78,0xD2,0xF4,0x81,0x6F,0xCA,0xB3,0x49,0xD7,0xBD,0x24,0x6E,0xBF,0x3A,
0x83,0x59,0x27,0x4D,0xAB,0xA1,0xF0,0x55,0x53,0x69,0x88,0x22,0x84,0x4E,0xA0,0xE5,
0x23,0x79,0xC7,0x92,0x4B,0xC1,0x50,0x8A,0x0C,0x89,0x17,0xFD,0xE4,0x2E,0x00,0x05Other than these two battles, I don't see anything else that clogs up the route at the moment.
C30B|Ab1|Ab2|Ab3|Ab4
----+---+---+---+---
86 | - | + | + | -
93 | - | + | - | +
166| - | /2| + | /2
243| - | + | - | + C30B|Ab1|Ab2|Ab3|Ab4
----+---+---+---+---
86 | 53| 76|182| 40
93 | 64|197|124|166
166| 42| 44| 22|247
243| 75|193| 80|138The value R is the RNG value we read directly from memory after it is "rolled". The value D is the upper bound of the "random" number, with an assumed lower bound of zero. If, for example, a healing effect restores 20~35 HP, subtract 20 from the upper range to get our D. If there is a number of different effects with "equal" chances (the term "equal" being used loosely, as the distribution prefers to avoid the extremes), use (number - 1) for your D. I think this function fits well with the Ability Uses Shuffler, the numbers at the top of this post would match this function with a D of 3, and a small amount of trying them out led me to link the effects with the results I've been getting. If it's not true, I'm sure further tests will prove me wrong.Language: lua--Insert the SuperRNGTable here --***************************************************************************** local function GenRange(R,D) --***************************************************************************** -- Returns an integer from 0 to D. -- Might be imprecise. If so, we'll come up with something different! return math.floor((SuperRNGTable[R]*(D)/255)+.5) end