[SM] Super Metroid Impossible

2008-01-08 02:30:05 pm

Indeed you have.

Mission completed once again.

Clear time 1:59
Item collection 41%

11ETank 2RTank 15Missile 35Supermissile 15Power Bomb All suit upgrades and beams.

Would have coped with even less, but this is a nice test. Well, I did not have even one full tank left when Ridley exploded, but I think it can be improved some, so maybe 10 tanks is enough (or 12 if you count the reserves). It does not matter if you take more than 13 tanks, because CF only fills a certain amount of tanks, not all. So you have to fight Ridley with same amount of energy nevertheless.

Maybe drop one missile pack, there really is no need for the 5 extra, I just accidentally took the second pack after Spore Spawn and the Wrecked Ship pillar tank was unavoidable, so...

15 Power Bombs is enough. You can manipulate drops so you can always keep them in stock.

Maybe one super missile pack can be dropped, but that has quite an effect on Ridley (and GT).

Otherwise all the items are more or less necessary for game completion. Ridley without Plasma and without missiles is way too long to even think about, even with some 30 super missiles.

This makes the possible regular play low% something like... 38% or so. Thoughts?

smv attached for those who are interested. I do not promise anything spectacular, well maybe WS lake CWJ and some other minor stuff. The re-record count is kinda high because I once again started testing things in the middle of playing. Oh well...

Indeed you have.

Mission completed once again.

Clear time 1:59
Item collection 41%

11ETank 2RTank 15Missile 35Supermissile 15Power Bomb All suit upgrades and beams.

Would have coped with even less, but this is a nice test. Well, I did not have even one full tank left when Ridley exploded, but I think it can be improved some, so maybe 10 tanks is enough (or 12 if you count the reserves). It does not matter if you take more than 13 tanks, because CF only fills a certain amount of tanks, not all. So you have to fight Ridley with same amount of energy nevertheless.

Maybe drop one missile pack, there really is no need for the 5 extra, I just accidentally took the second pack after Spore Spawn and the Wrecked Ship pillar tank was unavoidable, so...

15 Power Bombs is enough. You can manipulate drops so you can always keep them in stock.

Maybe one super missile pack can be dropped, but that has quite an effect on Ridley (and GT).

Otherwise all the items are more or less necessary for game completion. Ridley without Plasma and without missiles is way too long to even think about, even with some 30 super missiles.

This makes the possible regular play low% something like... 38% or so. Thoughts?

smv attached for those who are interested. I do not promise anything spectacular, well maybe WS lake CWJ and some other minor stuff. The re-record count is kinda high because I once again started testing things in the middle of playing. Oh well...

attachments:

SMI 1.5001.png

SMI low% by Lance.rar

Sneaky Paradox

2008-01-08 02:54:38 pm

Why would you need all suits and beams? Couldn't you live with the varia suit and the plasma beam?

Lance Uppercut

2008-01-08 03:28:40 pm

Quote from Sneaky Paradox:

Why would you need all suits and beams? Couldn't you live with the varia suit and the plasma beam?

Well varia is probably skippable, but usually Samus has taken so much damage from Ridley that there is no chance to survive back from Ridley´s lair. Plasma can also be skipped, but then you would need missiles to help destroy Ridley fast enough. If you skip Plasma you don´t need spring ball either.

Spazer - To get e-tanks for the first hot run
Charge - To destroy bosses mostly
Wave - To get screw attack
Screw attack - To obtain Ice Beam
Gravity suit - To make screw attack work underwater
Ice - To kill Metroids in Tourian
Space Jump - To activate the statue in LN
Speed Booster - To obtain reasonable amount of items before LN.

Saturn has done a thorough job planning this.

Cpadolf

2008-01-08 03:43:20 pm

Almost happy

Quote from Lance Uppercut:

Saturn has done a thorough job planning this.

Yes, sadly... I had planned to skip gravity, ice screwattack and perhaps also Wave but he made the metroids invulnerable to PB's and for ice you need all the other... bastard.

I also thought about taking Speedbooster and Supers before Kraid (and in doing so also doing the entire pre LN collection before WS, including charge spacejump and PB's) but Speedbooster is blocked by a grapple block and the Super alone is not worth the pauseabuse. This in particular is sad because it would have been such a massive gamebreak.

Fano7

2008-01-08 05:27:06 pm

Every Bit Counts

yes, it would have been.

Sneaky Paradox

2008-01-08 10:33:37 pm

It seems like Saturn did his homework.

Cpadolf

2008-01-13 04:37:11 pm

Almost happy

I consider myself having made enough work now to release a second WIP so here goes.

I don't really know it myself but I think that the optimization level on the new stuff is slightly lower than the old, I just have that feeling, but, well you''l see.

Various information and thoughts: (watch first)

- Kraid can likely be improved by a hefty amount of frames but I grew tired of him, the strategy used should at least be optimal except for one claw spawning in a bad place. Manipulating that claw and trying to optimize the position of every 4th pickup should speed up the battle slightly.

- The third heated room in norfair might be improvable by removing one or two health pickups, the reason I did not do this is because the gain is small and the outcome is random. With bad luck it would have made me die when leaving norfair to WS.

- Crocmire is a big question mark for me, he could be close to perfection or he could be improvable by more than a second, I don't really know how he works, if it is faster to delay each round to hit him with more missiles or to make every round short and hit him with only 3 missiles.

- I don't know if this was known earlier but at least I did not know of it until now. When doing a pseudo springball jump in a 3 block space you would normally have to go out of crouching position to not hit the roof, because of the boost of a crouchjump, but if you aim with R or L for 1 frame and then you don't get that boost and can make the jump directly from crouching position.

- Doesn't that upward CWJ out of crocmires lair just look so sexy :)

The next (and much likely last) WIP will probably end somewhere around the maridia tube. I'm trying to fit each WIP so that it is as close as possible to being 10 minutes without breaking it in midaction so that they are easily applied to youtube.

Anyway have fun :-)

I consider myself having made enough work now to release a second WIP so here goes.

I don't really know it myself but I think that the optimization level on the new stuff is slightly lower than the old, I just have that feeling, but, well you''l see.

Various information and thoughts: (watch first)

- Kraid can likely be improved by a hefty amount of frames but I grew tired of him, the strategy used should at least be optimal except for one claw spawning in a bad place. Manipulating that claw and trying to optimize the position of every 4th pickup should speed up the battle slightly.

- The third heated room in norfair might be improvable by removing one or two health pickups, the reason I did not do this is because the gain is small and the outcome is random. With bad luck it would have made me die when leaving norfair to WS.

- Crocmire is a big question mark for me, he could be close to perfection or he could be improvable by more than a second, I don't really know how he works, if it is faster to delay each round to hit him with more missiles or to make every round short and hit him with only 3 missiles.

- I don't know if this was known earlier but at least I did not know of it until now. When doing a pseudo springball jump in a 3 block space you would normally have to go out of crouching position to not hit the roof, because of the boost of a crouchjump, but if you aim with R or L for 1 frame and then you don't get that boost and can make the jump directly from crouching position.

- Doesn't that upward CWJ out of crocmires lair just look so sexy :)

The next (and much likely last) WIP will probably end somewhere around the maridia tube. I'm trying to fit each WIP so that it is as close as possible to being 10 minutes without breaking it in midaction so that they are easily applied to youtube.

Anyway have fun :-)

attachment:

And another one.smv

Lance Uppercut

2008-01-14 08:19:50 am

Another best 10 minutes of my life. =)

This looks very nice, everything seems so polished and well-tested.

Your Crocomire fight looks exactly how I would do it if I had the skill to do it, leaving those missiles pickups waiting there until you can dispose of some. I think there is no big difference whether you blast 3 missiles or more, you still have to wait him move backwards and shoot some projectiles to refill.... I am not sure though.

Morph ball maze and the escape there was very good as well, almost made me dizzy watching all that morphing-unmorphing.

CWJ looks very nice everywhere, especially the one upwards from Croc´s

And of course, once again, I have to applaud you for being entertaining during waiting time.

Tonski

2008-01-14 08:30:06 am

We already discussed about this one at MSN, I can't be bothered to write it everything again here. ;)

But in one word excellent. I always knew CWJ upwards must be possible, never succeeded in it though. :(

Cpadolf

2008-01-14 04:36:58 pm

Almost happy

Quote from Lance Uppercut:

Another best 10 minutes of my life. =)

More like 9 ;)

Anyway the WIP is up on my youtube channel now.

Saturn

2008-01-15 02:16:47 pm

Damn nice WIP that is once again of extremely high quality, Cpadolf!

You make SMI look like it's the easiest hack out there, since you passed nearly all obstacles I added as if they weren't even there. I especially enjoyed the after-Crocomire area. The double spike walljump after the Super Missile, and most of all the walljump + horizontal bomb strategy 2 rooms later that allowed you to completely skip the IBJ there was very creative. Also excellent energy management during the heat rooms. The skip of the 3rd E-Tank was also very clever to save a good amount of detour time. And once again, very stylish waiting scenes (like during the Crocomire fight). Keep up the great work!

The only slight error I could see was at the beginnig of the Crocomire fight. You can actually skip the 2nd Croc-introduction move by slightly delaying the 2nd Missile shot during the very first introduction. That Missile delay will make Croc quickly open his mouth for like 1-3 frames before the 2nd introduction, and if you hit him during this time one more time, it gets cancelled completely, saving you about one second. See JXQ's 100% v2 TAS for a example on how to do it correctly.

Also very nice tech you found to avoid the crouch bump when jumping during the morphball maze. I actually knew that pressing a aim button would do that (found during RBO Ridley fight while aiming up all the time to shoot him), but I never thought this could be abused during a pseudo-springball move. Unfortunately it doesn't save any frames compared to the usual method though, but it's still a nice alternative to use. :)

Damn nice WIP that is once again of extremely high quality, Cpadolf!

You make SMI look like it's the easiest hack out there, since you passed nearly all obstacles I added as if they weren't even there. I especially enjoyed the after-Crocomire area. The double spike walljump after the Super Missile, and most of all the walljump + horizontal bomb strategy 2 rooms later that allowed you to completely skip the IBJ there was very creative. Also excellent energy management during the heat rooms. The skip of the 3rd E-Tank was also very clever to save a good amount of detour time. And once again, very stylish waiting scenes (like during the Crocomire fight). Keep up the great work!

The only slight error I could see was at the beginnig of the Crocomire fight. You can actually skip the 2nd Croc-introduction move by slightly delaying the 2nd Missile shot during the very first introduction. That Missile delay will make Croc quickly open his mouth for like 1-3 frames before the 2nd introduction, and if you hit him during this time one more time, it gets cancelled completely, saving you about one second. See JXQ's 100% v2 TAS for a example on how to do it correctly.

Also very nice tech you found to avoid the crouch bump when jumping during the morphball maze. I actually knew that pressing a aim button would do that (found during RBO Ridley fight while aiming up all the time to shoot him), but I never thought this could be abused during a pseudo-springball move. Unfortunately it doesn't save any frames compared to the usual method though, but it's still a nice alternative to use. :)

Tonski

2008-01-15 02:27:35 pm

I think Kriole originally invented that IBJ skipping horizontal bomb strategy, it's even in his WIP on Youtube if I recall correct. I used it too but I don't think you've seen that yet from my run.

P.JMan

2008-01-15 02:32:03 pm

I like Big Butts and I can not lie

I like this movie, it's one of the more entertaining SM TASes I've seen. It also looks like you've managed not to miss any of the tricks I used in my little 100% walkthrough. (although there are a couple more ideas that could have been used, not sure if they would be any faster though)

Cpadolf

2008-01-15 03:49:26 pm

Almost happy

Yeah kriole did that walljump+DBJ first.

I would have redone croc if I were somewhere around norfair elevator but I'm already at phantoon, who by the way is annoying as I don't know what. The second round is pretty much impossible to manipulate in any good way, there are ~2-3 patterns that I might accept/be able to finish him with and the only way to make him change is to delay the first shot or hit him with more/less missiles and since I pretty much am forced to hit him with 19+ missiles the first time the latter is not to much use. Just hitting him with 19 missiles is mildly annoying, doing it multiple times delaying the first by 1 frame at a time is agony. I also refuse to use a pause screen to manipulate him.

Quote from P.JMan:

although there are a couple more ideas that could have been used, not sure if they would be any faster though

Please share these ideas if you like.

Saturn

2008-01-15 05:21:47 pm

Quote from Cpadolf:

Yeah kriole did that walljump+DBJ first.

Ahh, I forgot about it at first, sorry.

P.JMan

2008-01-15 06:13:33 pm

I like Big Butts and I can not lie

Quote from Cpadolf:

Please share these ideas if you like.

Spore Spawn: could you not have started shooting from further away and start going closer while still shooting, achieving more damage in the 1st round AND to make the 2nd round slightly shorter since you're shooting earlier (and thus the final missile hits earlier)?

1st room of red brinstar: was it not possible to manipulate that beetom out of the way when jumping down the bomb hole?

Kraid: that 1st shot should have been shot a bit later to reduce some lag. That last round of missile couldn't have included some diagonal shots to evade the dalays?

Crocomire: those 1st 2 missiles, I thought that no matter how many missiles/super missiles you pump into it 1st time, it goes back the same amount. After defeating it, you mochballed out the room, would a CWJ not have been better?

That room where you "skipped the IBJ by doing a DBJ after wall-jumping", maybe being unmorphed when being blown away by the bomb would have saved some unmorphing time and let you open the door earlier?

That's it really

[quote="Cpadolf"]Please share these ideas if you like.[/quote]
Spore Spawn: could you not have started shooting from further away and start going closer while still shooting, achieving more damage in the 1st round AND to make the 2nd round slightly shorter since you're shooting earlier (and thus the final missile hits earlier)?

1st room of red brinstar: was it not possible to manipulate that beetom out of the way when jumping down the bomb hole?

Kraid: that 1st shot should have been shot a bit later to reduce some lag. That last round of missile couldn't have included some diagonal shots to evade the dalays?

Crocomire: those 1st 2 missiles, I thought that no matter how many missiles/super missiles you pump into it 1st time, it goes back the same amount. After defeating it, you mochballed out the room, would a CWJ not have been better?

That room where you "skipped the IBJ by doing a DBJ after wall-jumping", maybe being unmorphed when being blown away by the bomb would have saved some unmorphing time and let you open the door earlier?

That's it really

Cpadolf

2008-01-15 06:47:58 pm

Almost happy

Quote from P.JMan:

Spore Spawn: could you not have started shooting from further away and start going closer while still shooting, achieving more damage in the 1st round AND to make the 2nd round slightly shorter since you're shooting earlier (and thus the final missile hits earlier)?

Maybe it would be possible to get one more missiles in (if you could manipulate a drop at a convenient spot) but I at least think 5 is the maximum for round 1.

Quote from P.JMan:

1st room of red brinstar: was it not possible to manipulate that beetom out of the way when jumping down the bomb hole?

I tried to do it the way you did but I was not able to, I think it was only possible for you since you had spent longer time in the room before going down to it.

Quote from P.JMan:

Kraid: that 1st shot should have been shot a bit later to reduce some lag. That last round of missile couldn't have included some diagonal shots to evade the dalays?

I haven't been thinking much about reducing lag really, I guess the difference would be pretty much unnoticeable and it's not going to tasvideos so I don't think it matters much. About the second part (I guess you mean so I would not have needed to jump 3 times) , IIRC no, though I might not RC so maybe.

Quote from P.JMan:

Crocomire: those 1st 2 missiles, I thought that no matter how many missiles/super missiles you pump into it 1st time, it goes back the same amount. After defeating it, you mochballed out the room, would a CWJ not have been better?

Well about the thing Saturn mentioned I did not know, but I think he goes further back if you shoot more missiles but not until after the second round of missiles. (AI with 3 missiles on the first and 2 on the second round he first goes back as normal as if shot by 1 missiles but the second time as if shot by 5) Also I did halfway through a redo of him a couple of days ago and hit him with 6 missiles the first time, that made him skip the second introduction move but brought further complications. (could not manipulate him to throw stuff at me) And no a CWJ out is slower (did this in my v1) it forces you to do a morphball bounce on the platform in the other room while mockballing out makes you barely (like half a pixel away) clear the ledge.

Quote from P.JMan:

That room where you "skipped the IBJ by doing a DBJ after wall-jumping", maybe being unmorphed when being blown away by the bomb would have saved some unmorphing time and let you open the door earlier?

Maybe but I think you would hit the spikes even with a optimal bomb boost, even morphball comes really close to do that. From a higher hight it might work though depending on how high you might not gain any time.

[quote="P.JMan"]Spore Spawn: could you not have started shooting from further away and start going closer while still shooting, achieving more damage in the 1st round AND to make the 2nd round slightly shorter since you're shooting earlier (and thus the final missile hits earlier)?[/quote]

Maybe it would be possible to get one more missiles in (if you could manipulate a drop at a convenient spot) but I at least think 5 is the maximum for round 1.

[quote="P.JMan"]
1st room of red brinstar: was it not possible to manipulate that beetom out of the way when jumping down the bomb hole?[/quote]

I tried to do it the way you did but I was not able to, I think it was only possible for you since you had spent longer time in the room before going down to it.

[quote="P.JMan"]
Kraid: that 1st shot should have been shot a bit later to reduce some lag. That last round of missile couldn't have included some diagonal shots to evade the dalays?[/quote]

I haven't been thinking much about reducing lag really, I guess the difference would be pretty much unnoticeable and it's not going to tasvideos so I don't think it matters much. About the second part (I guess you mean so I would not have needed to jump 3 times) , IIRC no, though I might not RC so maybe.

[quote="P.JMan"]

Crocomire: those 1st 2 missiles, I thought that no matter how many missiles/super missiles you pump into it 1st time, it goes back the same amount. After defeating it, you mochballed out the room, would a CWJ not have been better?[/quote]

Well about the thing Saturn mentioned I did not know, but I think he goes further back if you shoot more missiles but not until after the second round of missiles. (AI with 3 missiles on the first and 2 on the second round he first goes back as normal as if shot by 1 missiles but the second time as if shot by 5) Also I did halfway through a redo of him a couple of days ago and hit him with 6 missiles the first time, that made him skip the second introduction move but brought further complications. (could not manipulate him to throw stuff at me) And no a CWJ out is slower (did this in my v1) it forces you to do a morphball bounce on the platform in the other room while mockballing out makes you barely (like half a pixel away) clear the ledge.

[quote="P.JMan"]
That room where you "skipped the IBJ by doing a DBJ after wall-jumping", maybe being unmorphed when being blown away by the bomb would have saved some unmorphing time and let you open the door earlier?[/quote]

Maybe but I think you would hit the spikes even with a optimal bomb boost, even morphball comes really close to do that. From a higher hight it might work though depending on how high you might not gain any time.

Tonski

2008-01-16 07:46:30 am

What about my strategy with leaving Crocomire's lair towards morph ball maze?

Cpadolf

2008-01-16 01:07:28 pm

Almost happy

Yeah I think that was the one P.JMan meant, mine is faster.

Also phantoon is down, I'm totally euphoric grin new

Fano7

2008-01-16 04:40:55 pm

Every Bit Counts

nice WIP. luckly I was able to download it before my router stoped working. can't wait for the next one. Really great, great quality like always.

DMantra

(user is banned)

2008-01-23 08:06:47 pm

Breathe in the Future, Breathe out the Past

This hack is killing me but I intend to make the honor list!

Sneaky Paradox

2008-01-23 09:40:25 pm

Good luck!

Cpadolf

2008-01-25 03:37:47 pm

Almost happy

Time for my 3rd and final WIP for this run then.

For this part ammo management got a hefty bit harder, both because the fact that it is harder in general but also because I don't have anything decent to compare to post phantoon. (tonski taking another route and krioles WIP basically lacking any kind of ammo management at all) Thus I doubt it is as close to optimal as the earlier parts, time will tell. I think it turned out quite nicely though.

Thoughts on the run: (Preferably read it after you watched it)

- I grabbed a Super from a cactus enemy in the second red brisntar shaft, this turned out to be uneccessary. I did not redo because doing so would change luck and possibly make it neccessary anyway :/

- Phantoon was unimaginably bitchy, the second pattern is hell to manipulate, after having done the first round 12 (12!) times I found a way to hit the first missile faster and then I got a good pattern with no delay at all : )
There might be a faster second pattern (maybe getting the first one a second time) but since the second rounds speed is determined by him moving around after being hit once I was not sure whitch one was faster and I sure as hell did not want to do another 12 (friggin 12!!!1!1) first rounds.

- I choose the Super route since the route I created for the rest of the run has a extremely good oporunity to take charge later. The two routes will end up pretty much equally fast though I predict, I doubt there will be more than a 10 second difference one way or the other (okay that is kinda much but for a first generation run you might as well go on intuition)

- Top WS room was a real challenge, the one in the run is the 5th version of it created from scratch, this has a very good balance betwen ammo precervance and speed, barely any slowdowns and littel ammo loss.

- I did not switch of hi-jump boots outside of WS going to maridia, I recon a ~30-40 frames gain is not worth 10 seconds of blank boring.

- Watch me waste a super in the maze, or wait do I? :P

- Second Maridia room can be made at least 40 frames faster, I sacrifice this time though for a massive ammo recharge and it will most certanily be regained later.

- I might redo the last few rooms later, they look a bit unoptimized to me and I'll sure have lot's of time to do it.

- At this rate I'll break 200000 rerecords easliy...zomg epic Shocked

As of now I'll stall progression of the run until 1; Tonski has made it past Draygon or 2; He resigns from working on it. (hope not) So... yeah, hope you'll like it. (it's also up on youtube already)

Time for my 3rd and final WIP for this run then.

For this part ammo management got a hefty bit harder, both because the fact that it is harder in general but also because I don't have anything decent to compare to post phantoon. (tonski taking another route and krioles WIP basically lacking any kind of ammo management at all) Thus I doubt it is as close to optimal as the earlier parts, time will tell. I think it turned out quite nicely though.

Thoughts on the run: (Preferably read it after you watched it)

- I grabbed a Super from a cactus enemy in the second red brisntar shaft, this turned out to be uneccessary. I did not redo because doing so would change luck and possibly make it neccessary anyway :/

- Phantoon was unimaginably bitchy, the second pattern is hell to manipulate, after having done the first round 12 (12!) times I found a way to hit the first missile faster and then I got a good pattern with no delay at all : )
There might be a faster second pattern (maybe getting the first one a second time) but since the second rounds speed is determined by him moving around after being hit once I was not sure whitch one was faster and I sure as hell did not want to do another 12 (friggin 12!!!1!1) first rounds.

- I choose the Super route since the route I created for the rest of the run has a extremely good oporunity to take charge later. The two routes will end up pretty much equally fast though I predict, I doubt there will be more than a 10 second difference one way or the other (okay that is kinda much but for a first generation run you might as well go on intuition)

- Top WS room was a real challenge, the one in the run is the 5th version of it created from scratch, this has a very good balance betwen ammo precervance and speed, barely any slowdowns and littel ammo loss.

- I did not switch of hi-jump boots outside of WS going to maridia, I recon a ~30-40 frames gain is not worth 10 seconds of blank boring.

- Watch me waste a super in the maze, or wait do I?  :P

- Second Maridia room can be made at least 40 frames faster, I sacrifice this time though for a massive ammo recharge and it will most certanily be regained later.

- I might redo the last few rooms later, they look a bit unoptimized to me and I'll sure have lot's of time to do it.

- At this rate I'll break 200000 rerecords easliy...zomg epic :shock:

As of now I'll stall progression of the run until 1; Tonski has made it past Draygon or 2; He resigns from working on it. (hope not) So... yeah, hope you'll like it. (it's also up on youtube already)

attachment:

Cpadolf-SMI-TASv2.smv

Fano7

Edit history:

Fano7: 2008-01-25 04:12:54 pm

2008-01-25 04:09:58 pm

Every Bit Counts

wow. extremly nice WIP. Loved Phantoon and the water balls. I also love how you shot almost everything in Maridia. you think too much about un-optimization. or mabey I think too less. :/

Quote:

final WIP for this run

:(

Quote:

Watch me waste a super in the maze, or wait do I? :P

lol, thats the first thing I thought when I saw you do that.

Cpadolf

Edit history:

Cpadolf: 2008-01-25 04:19:05 pm

2008-01-25 04:15:52 pm

Almost happy

Quote from Fano7:

lol, thats the first thing I thought when I saw you do that.

You know why I did it then? :P

Quote from Fano7:

gah Sad aiwebs_018 aiwebs_010 aiwebs_023 aiwebs_027 stern khaaaan

Well it's got to end somewhere, and look on it from the bright side. When I finaly release the whole run there will be upwards to a full hour of new stuff.

Quote from Fano7:

I also love how you shot almost everything in Maridia

Well that's to refill, I'll need all ammo I can get my hands on in a resonable amount of time for Botwoon then Draygon.

Quote from Fano7:

you think too much about un-optimization.

Nah, obsession makes the end result so much smoother : )