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Thanks for the explanation, KentaKurodani! Great Idea, hero! That looks nice! I've been very busy lately with work and couldn't search for anything. I was just messing around a few hours ago with that Maridia Pseudo Screw strategy to see what would happen in the previous room. I used Cpadolf's smv in some parts and replaced some inputs in a way that Samus could charge the beam. It seems the only way to charge the beam in time is unmorphing after the mockball, but it's probably possible to optimize it so Samus can unmorph earlier or something like that. I went through the next room (Samus emerged in the same position as in Cpadolf's run) and the result was an improvement of just 17 frames. smv Edit: I managed save 1 frame in the secret area by making samus to unmorph 1 frame eralier (by not pressing right before unmorphing) but because i had to turn around i have to make Samus unspin earlier to fully charge the beam, then she triggers the screen transition in position 102. In the next room, when Jumping for the pseudo screw, she touches the mini draygon and gets damaged. You need to trigger the screen transition at least in position 103 or Samus will get damaged when pseudo screwing. It would be much better if it was possible to fully charge the beam without having to unmorph in mid air in the previous room, don't know if it's possible.
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Can someone either post here or hop on the irc sometime around 2-3 pm est to explain to me.how to.do phantoon? I'd like to learn how to stunlock him
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KentaKurodani, you can find instructions from Super Metroid game resource page
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Just a minor idea i couldn't test: In the Super Missile room above Phantoon's lair, while waiting for the PB to destroy the block on the right side, stay on the top of the robot and get a mockball through the tunnel. You can shoot the robot once when jumping for the mockball and using wave beam you can shoot it again right when samus land on the Super Missile pack. The idea here is that with a mockball Samus will travel faster through the tunnel and land closer to the hub, so she can jump from duck position for a ledge grab. Edit: Just for better visualization of hero's Kraid Exit trick. smv Edit 2: Got a better smv by 5 frames. Anyway, just trying to improve my TASing skills... smv Edit 3: One more frame saved. I think it's the best i can do, but it's still probably improvable. smv
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How "pacifist" can a TAS be in Super Metroid? Besides the bosses, there's several rooms where you have to kill everything to proceed, and most of them can, in theory, be skipped or bypassed, right? (Sure, Zebes self-destructs at the end, but that's technically not Samus' fault.)
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Uh, let's see. Assuming you don't use the X-Ray Scope glitch: * The bosses, obviously, though Torizo, Spore Spawn, Crocomire, and Gold Torizo are all skipped. * All of the metroids in Zebes, plus the zebetites if you count those. * The ninja pirates in lower Norfair -- necessary to get to Ridley, natch. I can't remember off the top of my head if you have to kill the pirates and mini-Kraid just before Kraid, but I don't think so. Hi-Jump and Plasma are both un-gettable because they're in enemy-locked rooms. Gravity is un-gettable without clearing the Wrecked Ship attic. I believe that you need one of Gravity or Hi-Jump to do Maridia; in that case getting Hi-Jump would involve fewer kills though it would make the run much longer. Some lesser upgrades (most notably the Kraid E-tank) are similarly out-of-bounds, but I'm pretty sure there's at least 6 E-tanks lying around (enough to beat Mother Brain without Gravity), and there should be plenty of ammo.
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creaothceann
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dotchan wrote:
How "pacifist" can a TAS be in Super Metroid?
That would be glitching into the room behind Mother Brain.
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If you use the X-ray beam I think you could probably get away with only killing some Metroids and the pirates in the old motherbrain room. You'd have to go out of your way a bit to refill ammunition via powerups instead of enemy drops, but before Tourian the only enemies you should have to kill are the first pirates in Blue Brinstar. Everything else should be avoidable by picking up extra missile packs/E-tanks. In Tourian you'd most likely have to kill some but not all of the Metroids. I know that at the very least the first room is skippable, and the third is also very likely to be skippable as well. The second and fourth I'm not so sure about (vertical rooms tend to be much worse to skip). After that there's nothing you need to kill.
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Eye Of The Beholder wrote:
Just a minor idea i couldn't test: In the Super Missile room above Phantoon's lair, while waiting for the PB to destroy the block on the right side, stay on the top of the robot and get a mockball through the tunnel. You can shoot the robot once when jumping for the mockball and using wave beam you can shoot it again right when samus land on the Super Missile pack. The idea here is that with a mockball Samus will travel faster through the tunnel and land closer to the hub, so she can jump from duck position for a ledge grab. Edit: Just for better visualization of hero's Kraid Exit trick. smv Edit 2: Got a better smv by 5 frames. Anyway, just trying to improve my TASing skills... smv Edit 3: One more frame saved. I think it's the best i can do, but it's still probably improvable. smv
I am not sure exactly what the strategy you mention in the first paragraph is. Can you provide a smv of your idea? Nice job on the optimization for the kraid exit. Your skills have come a long way, even publish worthy at this point.
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Cpadolf wrote:
Everything else should be avoidable by picking up extra missile packs/E-tanks. In Tourian you'd most likely have to kill some but not all of the Metroids.
It might be that you could use recharge rooms instead/as well. They're slow compared to enemy drops, but look a lot less slow when you're comparing them to picking up expansions.
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought all the doors in Tourian were metal doors, only opening once you destroyed all the Metroids in that room.
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Cpadolf is assuming you'd use the X-Ray Scope glitch to get out of bounds and avoid having to actually open the doors.
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hero, the idea is about this place: smv Edit: Btw, just out of curiosity, when going for the first Reserve Tank, next to the First Super Missile Pack, did anyone ever tested if it's slower to get the Reserve Tank first and then go for the two Missile Packs behind it? Edit 2: Managed to improve the Maridia Route Change a bit: Damage boosting from the falling crab makes possible to land more to the right without loosing time, so you can get more speed for the mockball saving some frames. If you shoot the pirate while samus is falling, he will turn to the right, getting closer to the ledge you have to land, so when you damage boost samus reach the ledge faster. smv Edit 3: Managed to improve it a bit more using a morph and unmorph to damage boost some frames earlier and Samus landed in a better position to start running. Also tried minimizing the most i could the lag during door transition, positioning samus more to the left in a way that it wouldn't change anything in the in-game time. I used Cpadolf's run to compare the times between the routes and the upper route seems to be around 35/40 in-game frames faster till now and looks much better. Probably still improvable. smv
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Hum... This seems to be some frames faster. smv
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Shouldn't BizHawk movies be used now?
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I believe I posted an smv similar to it many years ago, and if I recall it was indeed faster. creaothceann, For the purpose of demo files, I don't see why using snes9x would be a problem. It is much quicker and less CPU intensive, and it has some awesome lua scripts. Of course actual runs should be done using bizhawk.
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creaothceann wrote:
Shouldn't BizHawk movies be used now?
Pretty much what hero said. The computer i'm using to make these videos is very basic and doesn't handle BizHawk, unfortunately. I find snes9x easier to use and as it's just for demonstration movies, i think it's ok. I also think a new run should be done on BizHawk.
hero of the day wrote:
I believe I posted an smv similar to it many years ago, and if I recall it was indeed faster.
Yeah, i remember that. I couldn't find smv so i decided to try and make a new one. Don't know if Wave beam is helping there but it probably is.
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Yeah it's not possible without wavebeam actually. Hero found it during the making of the last 100% run but it couldn't be done with just Spazer.
Agare Bagare Kopparslagare
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That's nice! It's Wave beam (+ Charge Beam + Spazer) making the difference. Also, here is an updated version of the smv. In the end of it, Wave + Spazer saves a bit more of time. It's possible to kill the hopper shooting diagonally down before morphing. smv
creaothceann
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hero of the day wrote:
For the purpose of demo files, I don't see why using snes9x would be a problem.
Eye Of The Beholder wrote:
I find snes9x easier to use and as it's just for demonstration movies, i think it's ok.
Just wanted to mention it because then you might find out that something is only possible on SNES9x due to timing differences.
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Most of the things i've been testing is about in-game time and i thought the in-game timer was perfectly emulated by Snes9x... isn't that right? Edit: Managed to improve the PB room in Pink Brinstar a bit: smv Edit 2: Btw, it's possible to kill both hoppers without using any super and probably manipulate luck to get two super drops.
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Here is another improvement: Definetely improvable, mainly if it's possible to manipulate the lava rising to be low when leaving the room. smv
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You can't manipulate the lava, but that's still a good improvement. The bugs need to be killed on the way to the missile and their drops picked up with grapple beam, but that shouldn't add more than a frame or two.
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I see. Shame you can't manipulate the lava and i was afraid you couldn't use the strategy i posted because of the bugs drops, but nice you can still use it. Here is another one. It's faster and looks better than the old one. If nothing faster is found... smv Edit: Question: Regarding that route change after Plasma Beam, i mean, going to the right through the sandpit instead of to the left like in the current run, how much in-game time this will save?
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I did a smv using JXQ's old 100% run v2 to compare with. The smv is an improved version of the realtime route that Cpadolf used after Plasma Beam. I got it to be just 3 in-game frames slower than JXQ's strategy going through the sandpit. Maybe you guys can find a way to make it faster which would make the realtime route at least equally fast to the in-game time route. If the difference is just 3 to 5 in-game frames, it could be interesting to sacrifice those frames for entertainment purpose. smv