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Chanoire
2004-09-14 03:25:46 pm
To continue the OTness, it's not necessary to read Children of the Mind to enjoy the Shadow ones, since they all (I think, not sure if I read the most recent one) take place within the timeframe of Ender's Game.  Children of the Mind had some interesting points, but if you thought Xenocide stretched credulity a bit, Children of the Mind totally breaks it. 

I didn't remember the quote, but I certainly remember Mazer Rackham.
Phazon Siphon
2004-09-14 04:06:13 pm
Heh, all I've read is Ender's Game, Speaker For the Dead, and Ender's Shadow. My sister wont let me read Shadow of the Hegemon, and I can't find a copy of Xenocide :(.
JaggerG
2004-09-14 08:41:33 pm
Shifty Leader
That M2k2 guy
Nice, I knew SOMEBODY would go for :49! Good luck Kridly!

Quote from njahnke:
Quote from JaggerG:
I've decided that it's better to continue to the end every time unless I lose several minutes on something. This way, I'll get much more practice for each segment and won't have to wait until I finish one part to practice another. It doesn't get as boring this way.


also, that is scientifically proven to help you get a better time.

Lol your avatar stuck it's tongue out at me when I read that.

In other news, Archnus and its eye door REALLY hate me. I just can't get a no shot eye door, and I believe Arachnus' core-X "sweet spot" is just too damn high to work effectively. I can beat him without roles about 1/5 of the time, and I USUALLY have at least one missile when I beat him. I see now just how bad my boss fights have been, and see why it is 10 minutes worse than WD's run.

And by the way, I notice on DaveB's 100% run that the opening screen says Language just below the Press Start thing. Is that on certain releases or am I just blind because I've never noticed it on my game?
elyscape
2004-09-14 09:11:27 pm
Quote from JaggerG:
And by the way, I notice on DaveB's 100% run that the opening screen says Language just below the Press Start thing. Is that on certain releases or am I just blind because I've never noticed it on my game?

That, my friend, is the sign of a European release.
JaggerG
2004-09-14 09:23:20 pm
Shifty Leader
That M2k2 guy
Okay thanks.
nate
2004-09-14 11:31:22 pm
Quote from elyscape:
Quote from JaggerG:
And by the way, I notice on DaveB's 100% run that the opening screen says Language just below the Press Start thing. Is that on certain releases or am I just blind because I've never noticed it on my game?

That, my friend, is the sign of a European release.

one of two known. ;) was thinking it will be rather wacky to have a fusion version differences section with only one version difference (the fix for the alternate secret message method). the language selection for europe was kind of obvious ... i thought.

btw, i went through the european version of zero mission last month, and didn't see anything out of the ordinary. even things like the after long beam shortcut are still there.
ShadowJedi
2004-09-15 11:36:55 am
Quote from njahnke:
btw, i went through the european version of zero mission last month, and didn't see anything out of the ordinary. even things like the after long beam shortcut are still there.

I could've told you that several months ago, but I didn't see the point in it.

On another note, I found that I don't suck at Fusion, yet, so I might feel like playing it sometime.
Izo
2004-09-15 01:54:22 pm
soaking through
Quote from njahnke:
btw, i went through the european version of zero mission last month, and didn't see anything out of the ordinary. even things like the after long beam shortcut are still there.


Indeed.  I did that my first time through the game.  ^^
Ekarderif
2004-09-15 02:21:36 pm
After performing millions of save states, I stand by Nate's theory of optimal percent being 1%. Or very close to that anyways. My game was nearly perfect with no saves and yet... well look:



I'm pretty sure that's borderline 0:49-0:50 so yeah... Good luck on anyone attempting the 0:49. My 7% were all Missiles too.
nate
2004-09-15 05:38:34 pm
ekarderif, need you to elaborate a little bit ... did you feel that you wasted time picking up the missile tanks, and that's why you say you agree with me? it does seem very suspicious that you could only slightly beat sess 1) without saving and 2) picking up hella missile tanks. if saving cost sess 2-3 minutes like we believe it did, then those missile tanks must be worthless.
Ekarderif
2004-09-15 05:50:15 pm
It seems that the Missiles I got for just Nettori and Nightmare didn't affect much. I'm not quite Sess so I couldn't duplicate a few tricks (shortcut right after Serris, Yakuza) but I did the best I could. Basically every boss as quick as I can manage, and a few I surprised myself (BOX for instance). I wasted time getting a few out of the way Missile Tanks, but overall I do believe they are extremely wasteful timewise. I know that Energy Tanks are a waste so I didn't bother with any but personally I would have thought they'd make a bigger difference in some of the battles. So it does appear 1% is nominal, or so I think.  I did take a few bad Boss Doors, but it shouldn't affect it by more than a minute max with all my mistakes. Or maybe I'm just worse than I had thought...
nate
2004-09-15 06:18:28 pm
yeah, looks that way (1% nominal) ... you attribute a minute of errors to yourself (0:48) and sess used (or will use) between three and four minutes of saves (0:46 or maybe 0:45). that means that running errands to pick up m.tanks and sitting through the acquired message can apparently be very costly ...
Wassup Dawgs
2004-09-15 06:46:54 pm
I'm testing it now. Im in ARC II, and I decided to save to check my time.

It's 0:27 right now. But I know it's lower than usual. I ended up with 0:11 before Serris.

So saves probably don't take up as much time as initially expected.

Oh, and another note. On meltdown, (using the save states and including the Sessy jump in the room before the 4 ceiling monsters) I only ended up finishing it about .6 seconds faster than in my 0:50 run.

o_O
nate
2004-09-15 07:07:49 pm
we need someone to hack us up the real cost of a save. b.gash or j.saint could probably help us.
JaggerG
2004-09-15 07:37:53 pm
Shifty Leader
That M2k2 guy
...couldn't you record a going through save room, saving, and exiting vid and time it? I guess you need to know when the time stops/starts though, right? Man that time system's confusing.

Why don't we just ask Nintendo? I would think one of their employees knows an answer, or can find out.
nate
2004-09-15 07:49:24 pm
i thought about recommending that in the topic that turned into programming methods discussion, except then i remembered the canned response i'd gotten every other time i'd mailed nintendo.
JaggerG
2004-09-15 07:52:07 pm
Shifty Leader
That M2k2 guy
Try sending it to a department you think might read it, and add that as a sidenote. Maybe if you pretend you want to work for them, or if you offer to combine forces to overthrow Sony or Microsoft or something. Wink
nate
2004-09-15 08:29:53 pm
except that the gba metroid games were programmed entirely in japan by a japanese staff.

ah well, i'll be there in december ... i speak a little bit of japanese ... maybe i could drop by. :P
Wassup Dawgs
2004-09-15 09:07:25 pm
Results...



Practically the same as my 0:50, just without any saves, and far fewer mistakes.

I guess you ARE worse than you thought Ekarderif. ;)

So 0:49 is conceivable IMO.
Ekarderif
2004-09-15 10:51:51 pm
:P I guess I do suck. I did take a few things that probably caused headaches later (my Yakuza was painfully bad as I had to wait 5 seconds because he refused to stop crawling earlier, frenzy was unpredictable, etc.). Oh well, now that I'm completely Fusion'ed out, it's time for more Prime!
nate
2004-09-16 12:18:03 am
hmmm ... good job, w.dawgs. did you feel that the missile tanks slowed you down at all?
JaggerG
2004-09-16 08:15:12 pm
Shifty Leader
That M2k2 guy
Would E tanks speed you up at all? Do you get hit in most boss battles you do to save loads of time like for Mega-X and Yakuza?
Wassup Dawgs
2004-09-16 10:19:51 pm
Nope. I don't think it slows you down at all.

The pause lasts about 3 seconds, so that gives 18 seconds.

1 energy tank was grabbed on the way (Arachnus) so a possible 1/2 second gain (as opposed to jumpin over it).

Then the one I grabbed before the NOC SA-X encounter, which was grabbed during the bomb explosion, so that is about a 1 second gained (from the 3 second pause).

The 2 missile tanks before Arachnus, the first costing about a second and the second one costs about 4 seconds.

Then the missile you have to grab, (which actually shouldn't count so make that pause total only 15 seconds up there.

Then the one under the habitation deck. I chose this one because it's only about a 3 second detour.

So 15 - 1 (for the bomb E-Tank) + 1 + 4 + 3 = about a 22 second loss.

So with the added E-Tanks you can do the suicide techniques such as jumping into the stabilizers or the run through the electrified water. I'm not sure if there are any I use that will do more than 99 damage (because I've never really cared), but I always end up losing more than 99, because of hitting an enemy or two.

Oh wait, I just remembered that jumping into the mega-x 4 times does over 99 damage. At least I'm pretty sure of that.

Then the extra 15 missiles. Killing Nightmare in 1 stop is nice and fast. Netorri can be killed extremely fast with the few extra missiles, IF you can prevent him from shooting the upper beam (I'm not quite sure if that is random or not).

So I think the time gained pretty much nulls the time wasted, but a 6% run is much easier than a 1%, don't you think?
nate
2004-09-17 12:45:49 am
hmm, very interesting. you'd say 0:47 or maybe 0:46 is probably perfect then?