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1
Information Kiosk / Re: TSC API?
« on: April 20, 2016, 06:15:59 pm »
There's something vaguely resembling an API, which provides lightweight output to particular queries intended for use over IRC. I've sent the details in a PM.
2
General Sonic / Re: New Final Chase shortcut?
« on: December 14, 2014, 11:39:27 pm »
I've done this before. Not particularly useful, considering that rails can give you momentum in several directions, including down, faster than you get at terminal velocity in freefall. Might be more useful if Shadow had a bounce bracelet, but he doesn't.
3
Wikkity! / Re: Do you speedrun non-Sonic games?
« on: November 29, 2014, 07:26:51 pm »
I've been involved with the open-source game Red Eclipse, an online FPS that has time trial courses as a sidequest. On the most recent version, I've made single-level videos for all the official TT levels, but the important thing about it being open source is I can make changes to the maps myself, and those changes have been officially accepted for the soon-to-be-released upcoming version. Needless to say, v1.5 is going to remove nonsensical routes like the one in that linked video.
4
Competition Central / Re: S3K Ring Attacks questions
« on: October 30, 2014, 04:17:00 pm »
The goal was to avoid making Sonic's base-form physics completely obsolete, as well as preemptively fending off questions like "Can I use Super Sonic in Emerald Hill 1?" (which can only be done with the emerald code or by level-selecting to the special stage several times in a row). The pattern of counting to 50 and saying "ready or not, here I come!" didn't sound very compelling, even before we figured out just how breakable those games could be.
5
Competition Central / Re: S3K Ring Attacks questions
« on: October 30, 2014, 04:01:05 pm »
Random idea: What if S3K score/ring stats were per zone, instead of per act? This avoids double-counting buried monitors on the charts, and renders setups like that pointless since collecting the rings in either act would be sufficient to count in the final total. It's not going to happen for a variety of reasons (wipes all long-standing charts, infeasible to show those stats with a single screenshot, makes it vastly more annoying to play when both successful routes have to be done back-to-back), but this discussion would pretty much never arise if it had been done that way from the beginning. Pity Sonic Team for not building 20 years of forethought into their design process.
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Information Kiosk / Re: No Media Center Forum? (Suggestion)
« on: June 25, 2013, 02:21:44 pm »
You mean like Sonic '06 Appreciation Land?
7
General Sonic / Re: Random Sonic Advance Glitch/Happening
« on: April 08, 2013, 04:07:09 am »
That's normally associated with using GameShark codes or something similar. It takes a soft reset to proceed past that screen.
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Competition Central / MOVED: Sonic Adventure 2 Best Times-All Stages! Pros AND Newbies Welcome!
« on: November 30, 2012, 07:50:06 pm »
This topic has been moved to Sonic '06 Appreciation Land.
http://www.soniccenter.org/forum/index.php?topic=5513.0
http://www.soniccenter.org/forum/index.php?topic=5513.0
9
Rules Revisions / Re: Cannon's Core 3/5 FS?
« on: November 11, 2012, 12:51:33 am »
The problem with integrating it into the existing chart is right now there is no existing chart. Over the first two versions and 11+ years of the game's release, it wasn't possible to use FS techniques in a way that allowed a better time on those missions than you could get with a regular completion, so FS charts were never put up. Only now, after the long-delayed port introduced a strange new glitch involving Chao Keys of all things, is it possible to adapt that glitch into a route that works on any mission.
10
Rules Revisions / Cannon's Core 3/5 FS?
« on: November 09, 2012, 09:34:48 pm »
The Cannon's Core warp glitch has been well known since the beginning of TSC, and it's the basis on which the Freestyle division was founded. The first two versions of the game are rather limited in the ways they can invoke "CC successor mode;" the classic method is to use Chao World, either by selecting it from stage select or from the Emblem Results screen, which is restricted in that you always get dumped into mission 1. Additionally, they can use the kart stages as a somewhat more flexible transition stage, in that it allows you to choose any mission number. However, this is only useful because of the Route 280 death reset in mission 2, so that CC2 FS can exist and yield an even lower time than mission 1 does in the original releases. Playing either kart stage on 3 or 5 is useless for creating FS charts because even Route 101 isn't as fast as the times that are possible by playing through Cannon's Core the "long way". So we only have freestyle charts there for missions 1 and 2.
Then along comes the HD rerelease, with its obligatory contribution of Sonic Team coding: somehow their implemention of widescreen allows the Chao Key glitch to arise, which is something exploitable with any character, in any mission, and it always invokes CC successor mode, even to the point of throwing you into the Test Level as a "null successor" if you haven't played CC recently. Notably, the timer will start from 0 regardless of what it was after the level you picked using this method, and this can be used to set FS times in missions 3 and 5 that are far better than what can be achieved on the standard charts. (Without the need to accrue any lead-in time from Chao World, this method is sufficient to beat the old FS record on mission 1 too, which is already acceptable.)
Should we bother adding these charts since the mission layouts are technically different (and in the case of 5, the inability to stop time so soon will cause that mission to end up with a slightly longer time than the others, unlike 1/2/3 which have the same theoretical minimum time but different endpoints)? Or should this quirk of the game be without a home on TSC, a la SA/DX characters in other levels, since the charts would be completely meaningless with respect to the original releases of the game, and the only releases in existence for better than a 10-year timespan? Does anyone even care about FS charts to begin with?
Then along comes the HD rerelease, with its obligatory contribution of Sonic Team coding: somehow their implemention of widescreen allows the Chao Key glitch to arise, which is something exploitable with any character, in any mission, and it always invokes CC successor mode, even to the point of throwing you into the Test Level as a "null successor" if you haven't played CC recently. Notably, the timer will start from 0 regardless of what it was after the level you picked using this method, and this can be used to set FS times in missions 3 and 5 that are far better than what can be achieved on the standard charts. (Without the need to accrue any lead-in time from Chao World, this method is sufficient to beat the old FS record on mission 1 too, which is already acceptable.)
Should we bother adding these charts since the mission layouts are technically different (and in the case of 5, the inability to stop time so soon will cause that mission to end up with a slightly longer time than the others, unlike 1/2/3 which have the same theoretical minimum time but different endpoints)? Or should this quirk of the game be without a home on TSC, a la SA/DX characters in other levels, since the charts would be completely meaningless with respect to the original releases of the game, and the only releases in existence for better than a 10-year timespan? Does anyone even care about FS charts to begin with?
12
General Sonic / Re: Sonic 2 Chemical Plant How the Pipes Work?
« on: May 18, 2011, 12:41:38 am »
It has to do with the parity of the seconds. If it's an odd number you'll go one way, if it's even you'll go the other.
13
Wikkity! / Re: Did you ever notice...
« on: March 14, 2011, 07:43:15 pm »
What's next, are you going to make a spoof show of SportsCenter?
14
Rules Revisions / Re: Max Time Bonus in SCDS Scores/Extra
« on: December 02, 2010, 02:29:05 am »
This is exactly like restarting on the frame you get ring #100 in SA2 mission 2, which gets 8.25 every time and which we obviously don't allow. The same ban will be in place for this.
15
Leaderboard Disputes / ATTN: sonicsapphire
« on: October 16, 2010, 09:13:37 pm »
You're showing a 9.22 in Pumpkin Hill, untied by a full 1.83 (110 frames) on a level that only had 11 seconds to begin with.
I'll start off by presenting a list of every possible piece in the level, ripped straight from the SA2 data files: http://soniccenter.org/sm/files/sa2huntphrip.txt
The locations I've used are:
0112 for piece 1 (options are anything beginning with 01, 03, or X), in 154 frames
0002 for piece 2 (options are anything beginning with 00, 02, 05, or X), in 258 frames
0801 for piece 3 (options are anything beginning with 04, 07, or 08), in 249 frames
Is this improvement due to a new piece location that's even closer to start than the previous one in the appropriate slot, or just a much-improved way to get to the same spots?
No need to go into much more detail than that, at least not yet.
I'll start off by presenting a list of every possible piece in the level, ripped straight from the SA2 data files: http://soniccenter.org/sm/files/sa2huntphrip.txt
The locations I've used are:
0112 for piece 1 (options are anything beginning with 01, 03, or X), in 154 frames
0002 for piece 2 (options are anything beginning with 00, 02, 05, or X), in 258 frames
0801 for piece 3 (options are anything beginning with 04, 07, or 08), in 249 frames
Is this improvement due to a new piece location that's even closer to start than the previous one in the appropriate slot, or just a much-improved way to get to the same spots?
No need to go into much more detail than that, at least not yet.
16
Competition Central / Re: ITT THE BEST IDEA TSC HAS HAD IN YEARS
« on: October 13, 2010, 04:44:26 am »
Sky Chase Super RA: Because Wing Fortress isn't the only place you can play chicken!
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Competition Central / Re: ITT THE BEST IDEA TSC HAS HAD IN YEARS
« on: October 13, 2010, 04:39:10 am »
BUT WHAT IF I'M PLAYING AS TAILS
18
Rules Revisions / Re: Sonic Adventure (DX) Casinopolis Times
« on: August 17, 2010, 08:38:28 pm »
Casinopolis is a special case, and ignores any rings you have when entering the stage from an adventure field. Even if you bring 400, you have to leave them all behind at the door to avoid setting off the metal detector, and they won't help improve your time even if you don't know how to skip the claw.
(Note that the rings you get there don't count for the Chao garden either.)
(Note that the rings you get there don't count for the Chao garden either.)
19
Beef / Re: Why Knuckles/Rouge Speed runs for SA1 (DX) and SA2(Battle) should be removed
« on: August 09, 2010, 06:28:25 pm »
So since "designed for going fast" seems to be the only thing that matters, should we throw out the Tails/Eggman levels too? They're cast as being about making lots of things go BOOM, not about going fast.
People who don't know that the super bounce its the fastest way of gaining lots of height with Sonic (and it gets much more height than ordinary jumps could ever be capable of) will have no chance of keeping up with the record pace in any of those levels. Does that mean we strike those charts too for being unfair? It's just like knowing the closest item locations in the hunting stage: you LEARN THE DAMN GAME if you want to keep competitive.
As for what Super Mario Bros. has to do with anything, it has just as much as the Halo you brought up. Are Halo and Super Mario Bros. built for speedrunning? Certainly less so than even the hunting levels in SA1/2. Yet both of those games have their share of speedrunning. Whether a game is worth running is a decision made independently by each player, not by an overruling designer, and certainly not by one player attempting to channel that designer onto another's will. When even Pumpkin Hill, a notoriously annoying stage to the casual player, sees 112 submissions, those 112 have all made their choice.
People who don't know that the super bounce its the fastest way of gaining lots of height with Sonic (and it gets much more height than ordinary jumps could ever be capable of) will have no chance of keeping up with the record pace in any of those levels. Does that mean we strike those charts too for being unfair? It's just like knowing the closest item locations in the hunting stage: you LEARN THE DAMN GAME if you want to keep competitive.
As for what Super Mario Bros. has to do with anything, it has just as much as the Halo you brought up. Are Halo and Super Mario Bros. built for speedrunning? Certainly less so than even the hunting levels in SA1/2. Yet both of those games have their share of speedrunning. Whether a game is worth running is a decision made independently by each player, not by an overruling designer, and certainly not by one player attempting to channel that designer onto another's will. When even Pumpkin Hill, a notoriously annoying stage to the casual player, sees 112 submissions, those 112 have all made their choice.
20
Beef / Re: Why Knuckles/Rouge Speed runs for SA1 (DX) and SA2(Battle) should be removed
« on: August 09, 2010, 05:53:13 pm »
There's no glitch at play, just a list of 32+ items and predetermined knowledge of which of those would be easiest to get to. It's just like knowing, say, that the top path in Aquatic Ruin is better than the bottom path.
Yes there's luck involved. In SA1 the layouts are static once you enter the level and the ideal layout comes with odds 1/216; in SA2 they're regenerated with every life and success requires brute-forcing three generations to their best locations, each of which has odds between 1/32 and 1/45. But just because you have the right location doesn't mean you're automatically good for a record; you still have to convert on the attempt without losing any time. In some locations like the ones in Death Chamber, that can still be quite a task.
And where are you getting a 9-second PH figure? Those locations aren't that close.
You want a fun way to pass the time? Head over to the GoldenEye Elite and try to argue that they should remove their Facility and Frigate rankings, because there's no way to get the best times except by replaying the levels over and over until you get the most favorable results on the explicitly random generations of Dr. Doak's location (Facility) and the hostage escape lines (Frigate). Tell me how long you last there.
And what the hell is "built for speed runners"? Was Super Mario Bros. built for speed runners? I contend that anything in SA2 comes closer to that mystifying ideal than SMB1, and there's no rush to bring down the Mario Center. Besides, then we get into philosophical questions of the "If it was built for speed runners, does that mean it was built not to let you go through the walls? What does that tell you?" variety.
Yes there's luck involved. In SA1 the layouts are static once you enter the level and the ideal layout comes with odds 1/216; in SA2 they're regenerated with every life and success requires brute-forcing three generations to their best locations, each of which has odds between 1/32 and 1/45. But just because you have the right location doesn't mean you're automatically good for a record; you still have to convert on the attempt without losing any time. In some locations like the ones in Death Chamber, that can still be quite a task.
And where are you getting a 9-second PH figure? Those locations aren't that close.
You want a fun way to pass the time? Head over to the GoldenEye Elite and try to argue that they should remove their Facility and Frigate rankings, because there's no way to get the best times except by replaying the levels over and over until you get the most favorable results on the explicitly random generations of Dr. Doak's location (Facility) and the hostage escape lines (Frigate). Tell me how long you last there.
And what the hell is "built for speed runners"? Was Super Mario Bros. built for speed runners? I contend that anything in SA2 comes closer to that mystifying ideal than SMB1, and there's no rush to bring down the Mario Center. Besides, then we get into philosophical questions of the "If it was built for speed runners, does that mean it was built not to let you go through the walls? What does that tell you?" variety.
21
Ban List / TheSonicGod [BANNED]
« on: January 26, 2010, 12:59:52 pm »
Date of ban: 1/26/10
IP: 24.47.168.254
Reason for banning: Summarily wiped for flooding Sonic 1-2 charts with nonsense top ranks (0:01, 999999, etc.)
Forum permission status: Active
Ban duration: Permanent.
IP: 24.47.168.254
Reason for banning: Summarily wiped for flooding Sonic 1-2 charts with nonsense top ranks (0:01, 999999, etc.)
Forum permission status: Active
Ban duration: Permanent.
23
Competition Central / Re: I thought we couldn't die in the middle of our runs...
« on: December 16, 2009, 09:37:37 pm »
The only reason scores even need to be deathless is in game where they're cumulative; you could bop an enemy for 100, get a 1-up, die, bop the same enemy on your next life for 100 more and just rack up the points while never running out of lives.
Conversely, times must be cumulative through respawns, at least for whatever time it took to get to the check you're spawning from. You could hit the last checkpoint in a Sonic 2 level, then wait until time over and you'd respawn from the check with 0:00 on the clock. That certainly doesn't count. If you just die, instead of getting a time over, the clock still reads what it did when you got there (at least within a second) and you're allowed to continue from that.
I remember a time when the Cosmic Wall rings strat involved a death: you would intentionally tank at check 4 so that you could respawn there and hit 5, 6, 2, and 1 for bonuses before returning to start with all the level's rings available to you. (That was before forward rail 1 skip made it unnecessary.)
Conversely, times must be cumulative through respawns, at least for whatever time it took to get to the check you're spawning from. You could hit the last checkpoint in a Sonic 2 level, then wait until time over and you'd respawn from the check with 0:00 on the clock. That certainly doesn't count. If you just die, instead of getting a time over, the clock still reads what it did when you got there (at least within a second) and you're allowed to continue from that.
I remember a time when the Cosmic Wall rings strat involved a death: you would intentionally tank at check 4 so that you could respawn there and hit 5, 6, 2, and 1 for bonuses before returning to start with all the level's rings available to you. (That was before forward rail 1 skip made it unnecessary.)
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Competition Central / Re: The Official Top Tens Topic
« on: October 23, 2009, 06:35:56 pm »
As has become tradition at this point, first the Honorable Mentions:
GOGGLES (S1) - They do nothing. Needless to say, that's better than a few of the items out there.
EGGMAN (S2/S3/S&K) - Not so much on the S3/S&K side of things (though even there it has at least one accessibility purpose, for Knuckles in Lava Reef 2), but in S2 (where it's a 2P-only item) it's better than Goggles were in S1 since at least you get the item box point and a chance to inflate your Total Ring stat.
FLAME SHIELD (S3/S&K/S3D) - Useful for picking fights with Alondite, or whomever the punching bag of the month may be.
SHRINK (KC) - Frustrating yakuzas the world over since at least August 2008, and probably even earlier.
And the dishonorable mentions:
BLANK ITEM BOX (S1/S3/S&K/SA2(B)) - what a waste of space and material
LEAD SHOE (S3) - There are detrimental items that have their esoteric good points, and then there's the Lead Shoe. Simply terrible.
WETFLAME (S1WTFLAME) - You just lost The Game.
RANDOM RING (SA(DX)/SA2B/SH/a bunch of Advance and Rush games and maybe more I overlooked) - Really. No item box has ever garnered more hate from TSC over the years.
And finally, our feature presentation.
TOP TEN ITEM BOXES #1: S (SCD/S3/S&K)
What could be a better insignia of TSC than speed? Overall superiority. Enough said.
See you back here in 173 days when two more contestants will try their hand at Building a Crappy List! How much more room can there be to do worse?
GOGGLES (S1) - They do nothing. Needless to say, that's better than a few of the items out there.
EGGMAN (S2/S3/S&K) - Not so much on the S3/S&K side of things (though even there it has at least one accessibility purpose, for Knuckles in Lava Reef 2), but in S2 (where it's a 2P-only item) it's better than Goggles were in S1 since at least you get the item box point and a chance to inflate your Total Ring stat.
FLAME SHIELD (S3/S&K/S3D) - Useful for picking fights with Alondite, or whomever the punching bag of the month may be.
SHRINK (KC) - Frustrating yakuzas the world over since at least August 2008, and probably even earlier.
And the dishonorable mentions:
BLANK ITEM BOX (S1/S3/S&K/SA2(B)) - what a waste of space and material
LEAD SHOE (S3) - There are detrimental items that have their esoteric good points, and then there's the Lead Shoe. Simply terrible.
WETFLAME (S1WTFLAME) - You just lost The Game.
RANDOM RING (SA(DX)/SA2B/SH/a bunch of Advance and Rush games and maybe more I overlooked) - Really. No item box has ever garnered more hate from TSC over the years.
And finally, our feature presentation.
TOP TEN ITEM BOXES #1: S (SCD/S3/S&K)
What could be a better insignia of TSC than speed? Overall superiority. Enough said.
See you back here in 173 days when two more contestants will try their hand at Building a Crappy List! How much more room can there be to do worse?
25
Competition Central / Re: How much time do you lose when you respawn from a checkpoint in SA2:B?
« on: October 19, 2009, 03:27:58 pm »
How are you seeing the future if you're using the Past skin?
26
Competition Central / Re: The Official Top Tens Topic
« on: October 17, 2009, 11:41:59 pm »
TOP TEN ITEM BOXES #7: 500 Pts (KC) (no image for this one either? What a disgrace!)
I mean, we actually have score charts on TSC so what's not to like about an item box that just boosts your score directly?
...Oh. The fact that you can only get one in a mode that isn't allowed in score runs. Oh well.
In that case I guess you can just think of the 10-ring box as a proxy for our favorite point-scoring box. After all, it's even more score--1000--if you can go the rest of the level without getting hit! And if you already have 255 rings, then its value doubles to 2000 points, and you just cash that in right away whether you stave off hits or not!
But when you do, just think of how much simpler it would have been to hit a box and score 500, no matter what.
I mean, we actually have score charts on TSC so what's not to like about an item box that just boosts your score directly?
...Oh. The fact that you can only get one in a mode that isn't allowed in score runs. Oh well.
In that case I guess you can just think of the 10-ring box as a proxy for our favorite point-scoring box. After all, it's even more score--1000--if you can go the rest of the level without getting hit! And if you already have 255 rings, then its value doubles to 2000 points, and you just cash that in right away whether you stave off hits or not!
But when you do, just think of how much simpler it would have been to hit a box and score 500, no matter what.
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Competition Central / Re: The Official Top Tens Topic
« on: October 16, 2009, 04:23:18 pm »
TOP TEN ITEM BOXES #8: CHAOS EMERALD (STT) (wait why don't we have an image for this)
Hey, that's...a Chaos Emerald!
In a box even!
What could be better than that?
Hey, that's...a Chaos Emerald!
In a box even!
What could be better than that?
28
Competition Central / Re: The Official Top Tens Topic
« on: October 14, 2009, 05:08:12 pm »
Fine then.
TOP TEN ITEM BOXES #10 - GROW (KC)
Hitting the Grow box makes you big! Like Big the Cat! That's bad. But without a fishing rod or a mute frog to talk to! Sure, you may have a crocodile to talk to, but not a frog. So I'll allow it. Plus getting big makes it easier to get inside the walls and isn't that much better than fishing could ever be?
I wonder what Eggman is thinking after Charmy hits a Grow and he now finds himself being chased by a giant bee. Probably just something like "I really should make a better Buzz Bomber."
TOP TEN ITEM BOXES #10 - GROW (KC)
Hitting the Grow box makes you big! Like Big the Cat! That's bad. But without a fishing rod or a mute frog to talk to! Sure, you may have a crocodile to talk to, but not a frog. So I'll allow it. Plus getting big makes it easier to get inside the walls and isn't that much better than fishing could ever be?
I wonder what Eggman is thinking after Charmy hits a Grow and he now finds himself being chased by a giant bee. Probably just something like "I really should make a better Buzz Bomber."
29
Competition Central / Re: City Escape 9 second time saver.
« on: September 18, 2009, 02:02:31 pm »
I think that only worked in the demo disc which had CE as its only stage.
30
Gaming and Grazing / Re: Sonic Adventure 2: Battle Emerald Challenges!!! OMG WHAT
« on: August 22, 2009, 04:32:04 am »
First confirmed 15
530 tries. The "no boosts" is an absurd, random, and very poorly thought out restriction. If you can pass the 59th car before the bottleneck, then you won't be in any time trouble, and if you can't pass it by then, there's nothing you can do except dig in behind it, which forces you to lose so much time that there's no shot at the 2:50.
The closest run-in is with car 13, right at the end of the lap 1 tunnel, but you can check that part to see and hear that there's no collision and the car stays intact behind me.
In summary: That's three straight challenges you clearly haven't thought out and tested sufficiently. I doubt you'll be running this much longer.
530 tries. The "no boosts" is an absurd, random, and very poorly thought out restriction. If you can pass the 59th car before the bottleneck, then you won't be in any time trouble, and if you can't pass it by then, there's nothing you can do except dig in behind it, which forces you to lose so much time that there's no shot at the 2:50.
The closest run-in is with car 13, right at the end of the lap 1 tunnel, but you can check that part to see and hear that there's no collision and the car stays intact behind me.
In summary: That's three straight challenges you clearly haven't thought out and tested sufficiently. I doubt you'll be running this much longer.
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