GTA San Andreas Official Thread

S.

Edit history:

S.: 2013-03-06 12:04:40 am

S.: 2013-03-06 12:04:29 am

S.: 2013-03-06 12:03:58 am

S.: 2013-03-05 11:51:32 pm

S.: 2013-03-05 11:50:57 pm

S.: 2013-03-05 11:49:09 pm

S.: 2013-03-05 11:43:16 pm

S.: 2013-03-05 11:43:04 pm

S.: 2013-03-05 11:39:26 pm

2013-03-05 11:38:44 pm

Get hype everyone, S. is actually contributing!

Ok, so I think I found out how to get the cutscene skip in Ryder consistent.

Basically, you need to fail the mission first and that seems to let me skip the cutscene. I cba testing thismore as my laptop is pretty slow.
It looks like the game is coded to 'if the player already sat through the cutscene in an earlier attempt of the mission, allow a skip', but doesn't actually check whether you failed the mission before or after the cutscene in question (and it therefore assumes you seen it already).

http://www.twitch.tv/lotsofs/b/374373388 (beware, cropping went wrong and its ultralow FPS, go to 1:00 to skip my gamecrash)

Tested it twice, and both times it worked (although that's not exactly a big sample size to begin with).

This could also have potential in other missions.

edit: watching back the video, this seems to also have skipped the "get inside the barbershop" smaller cutscene. I think this might have potential beyond this mission.

Get hype everyone, S. is actually contributing!

Ok, so I think I found out how to get the cutscene skip in Ryder consistent.

Basically, you need to fail the mission first and that seems to let me skip the cutscene. I cba testing thismore as my laptop is pretty slow. 
It looks like the game is coded to 'if the player already sat through the cutscene in an earlier attempt of the mission, allow a skip', but doesn't actually check whether you failed the mission before or after the cutscene in question (and it therefore assumes you seen it already).

http://www.twitch.tv/lotsofs/b/374373388 (beware, cropping went wrong and its ultralow FPS, go to 1:00 to skip my gamecrash)

Tested it twice, and both times it worked (although that's not exactly a big sample size to begin with).

This could also have potential in other missions.

edit: watching back the video, this seems to also have skipped the "get inside the barbershop" smaller cutscene. I think this might have potential beyond this mission.

cpwr

2013-03-06 06:45:53 am

@freaky: It would be nice if you could time it. I can't do it right now, my PC is misbehaving.

Patrick (=freakypaddy)

2013-03-06 07:54:11 am

@cpwr: OK

That is a handy find S. :-) I could replicate it. Haven't found use for it after two minutes. You can skip the first long cutscene of Doberman after having watched it once and then immediately dying but not the second one. The burglar van stuff can't be skipped either. Maybe it applies to cutscenes that don't require effort to reach so that checking whether you already 'made it' to it is unnecessary.

Joshimuz

Edit history:

Joshimuz: 2013-03-06 08:06:16 am

2013-03-06 08:05:05 am

S, I just tried what you did in your video and its works!

I'm not sure how much time it saves exactly, but your right, this could be used in other missions which have long unskipable cutscenes that can be skipped if you have failed the mission prior.

Unfortunately, most missions aren't this simple to fail instantly. I was thinking about the Doberman mission, which has the long gang territory tutorial cutscene, while it may be possible to skip it, there is no way of easily failing the mission other than killing yourself.

EDIT: Just read Patrick's post... Looks like this is just all going to be trial and error then

Nixixix

2013-03-06 11:30:36 am

Hunterless backup strats: I compared using the Hunter until Don Peyote to getting the Maverick with Rustler at the start (taking off to the east which requires precision). This is obviously approximate, but I got times of 385 (practically the same as in Josh's WR run) and 415 seconds. That's only 30 seconds difference, so almost no failed gold (and certainly no two) at flight school is worth redoing. Just remember to avoid Area 69 (from the north side) in Don Peyote.

Quote from freakypaddy:

are there more Sprunk machines/chili dogs other than that and the one near the bar/Denise?

I don't remember any potentially useful ones. But I had forgotten about that one too.

My shaky timing says that saving at CJ's takes 14 seconds plus whatever extra time to run to/from the door outside. The Sprunk machine takes about 12 seconds for one drink (~1/3 health) and 17 for two, including stopping and reaccelerating, when it's on the route already, which it usually isn't.

Quote:

[...]Rhymes health: don't see the problem, doesn't he kill the last guy with the knive and loses a ton on heath there?

Josh usually sneaks to him which isn't too slow, but getting past the second guard fast without damage isn't possible AFAIK, and you often take some stray hits on the way back as well.

Quote from S.:

Ok, so I think I found out how to get the cutscene skip in Ryder consistent.

Basically, you need to fail the mission first and that seems to let me skip the cutscene.

One more confirmation here. This is beautiful.

Shame that it's probably unique, not many long unskippable mid-mission cutscenes around. There's no reason why end cutscenes of missions would be coded like this but who knows. Wonder what else might change – would be funny if this applied to trip skips, but no.

Hunterless backup strats: I compared using the Hunter until Don Peyote to getting the Maverick with Rustler at the start (taking off to the east which requires precision). This is obviously approximate, but I got times of 385 (practically the same as in Josh's WR run) and 415 seconds. That's only 30 seconds difference, so almost no failed gold (and certainly no two) at flight school is worth redoing. Just remember to avoid Area 69 (from the north side) in Don Peyote.

[quote="freakypaddy"]are there more Sprunk machines/chili dogs other than that and the one near the bar/Denise?[/quote]
I don't remember any potentially useful ones. But I had forgotten about that one too.

My shaky timing says that saving at CJ's takes 14 seconds plus whatever extra time to run to/from the door outside. The Sprunk machine takes about 12 seconds for one drink (~1/3 health) and 17 for two, including stopping and reaccelerating, when it's on the route already, which it usually isn't.

[quote][...]Rhymes health: don't see the problem, doesn't he kill the last guy with the knive and loses a ton on heath there?[/quote]
Josh usually sneaks to him which isn't too slow, but getting past the second guard fast without damage isn't possible AFAIK, and you often take some stray hits on the way back as well.

[quote="S."]Ok, so I think I found out how to get the cutscene skip in Ryder consistent.

Basically, you need to fail the mission first and that seems to let me skip the cutscene.[/quote]
One more confirmation here. This is beautiful.

Shame that it's probably unique, not many long unskippable mid-mission cutscenes around. There's no reason why end cutscenes of missions would be coded like this but who knows. Wonder what else might change – would be funny if this applied to trip skips, but no.

Joshimuz

2013-03-06 11:36:22 am

I just found a Life's a Beach dance party skip... while its uploading I'll explain

Mission starts as normal, you drive to the beach.
Once there, because it is a grove street gang area, homies will spawn there. You recruit one of them, drive over to the sound van, and spam enter vehicle on the locked drivers door.
Your homie will eventually run over to the passenger side door and get into the van. The second he shows any sign of getting in you hold the H button to disband the gang.
The gang will disband as he enters the car, and he will stay entered.
You then attempt to get into the van again, this time the homie will get out of the car, back in, but this time he will climb over to the drivers seat.
You then run away a decent amount from the party, not too close as to scare anyone there and fail the mission, but not to far as to not be able to see the homie in the car.
You then shoot him in the head, he falls out, and leaves the car door wide open.
You then simply get in and drive away...

I just found a Life's a Beach dance party skip... while its uploading I'll explain

Mission starts as normal, you drive to the beach. 
Once there, because it is a grove street gang area, homies will spawn there. You recruit one of them, drive over to the sound van, and spam enter vehicle on the locked drivers door.
Your homie will eventually run over to the passenger side door and get into the van. The second he shows any sign of getting in you hold the H button to disband the gang. 
The gang will disband as he enters the car, and he will stay entered.
You then attempt to get into the van again, this time the homie will get out of the car, back in, but this time he will climb over to the drivers seat. 
You then run away a decent amount from the party, not too close as to scare anyone there and fail the mission, but not to far as to not be able to see the homie in the car.
You then shoot him in the head, he falls out, and leaves the car door wide open.
You then simply get in and drive away...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GU4JHyZpivQ

sett3

2013-03-07 12:25:24 am

wow, thats amazing find! also, i definitely remember that i managed to skip home invasion truck cutscene far ago, but dunno how, going to test it now

Nixixix

2013-03-07 08:21:28 am

Excellent, Josh! As much time saved as very many small things put together.

Quote from Joshimuz:

You then attempt to get into the van again, this time the homie will get out of the car, back in, but this time he will climb over to the drivers seat.

He does that in time regardless of your actions, so you can be straight on your way to the shooting position.

Gotta love the gang loyalty. "Hey, wanna help your homie? Get your head blown off so I don't have to dance for three minutes!" – "Fo sho!"

As you noticed, this two minutes saved means that you're at Grove1 too early to do Home Invasion. But not too early to continue with Cesar Vialpando, so you're practically forced to the potentially save-free route. I like that. Smiley

You just need to play a little safer.

S.

Edit history:

S.: 2013-03-07 11:51:55 am

2013-03-07 11:51:44 am

Btw, has anyone figured out what caused Josh to keep his weapons after he died on Misappropriation in his 7:04?

cpwr

2013-03-07 03:25:33 pm

Just tried something, don't know if anyone mentioned, but if you have some Minigun ammo left in "End Of The Line", go and use it on Big Smoke. If you shoot him in the knee he's in about 1s dead.

cpwr

2013-03-07 06:15:26 pm

And another micro improvement, maybe you can work with that.

Attachment:

loc_man_iss.mp4

Nixixix

2013-03-08 02:06:24 am

Quote from S.:

Btw, has anyone figured out what caused Josh to keep his weapons after he died on Misappropriation in his 7:04?

Pretty sure it was unintentional cheating by practicing something with a downloaded save that had Katie dated, before starting the run. The game doesn't reset some related variable when starting a new game.

Joshimuz

2013-03-08 03:25:22 am

Quote:

And another micro improvement, maybe you can work with that.

Ah yes that's a bit better, allows me to avoid that knee high fence which kills me

Quote:

Btw, has anyone figured out what caused Josh to keep his weapons after he died on Misappropriation in his 7:04?

I actually watched the vod of my stream and I did download a save before the run to test the mini gun spawn out, ever since I make sure to close and reopen the game before I start runs

S.

2013-03-08 07:24:08 am

Quote from cpwr:

And another micro improvement, maybe you can work with that.

I've had numerous tries where my car would bounce off the little ledge though and end up not falling in the water, but I guess that with some practice and a more consistent approach you can avoid that, just a quick heads up. This was originally the route I had in mind when I told Josh about this but he took the wrong route and ever since I forgot about it :p

cpwr

2013-03-08 09:53:34 am

I tried it about 10 times and I got the car in the water without being seen by the bodyguards, sometimes you have to steer right before getting out so the angle is steep enough. The only thing that went wrong in 2 tries was that I got out of the car too late and rolled in the water Tongue

Nixixix

2013-03-09 02:23:56 am

Here are new, hopefully final versions of the hospital and police station area maps. Can't leave anything half-finished... I doubt there are any more useful death/bust warps for any%, but at least this could benefit 100% runners. I still haven't tested all the old lines. If you find a wrongly predicted spot, please tell and I'll investigate and correct it.

Generally you always respawn at the nearest enabled hospital (red cross) to where you die or the nearest enabled police station (blue cross) to where you get busted. Some areas are exceptions, but even then you normally respawn at the hospital/station that is in the same area as you on the map. Katie Zhan (green cross and border) is a special case. If you're dating her, you respawn at her house if you died within 1500 meters of it. This eats most of the area of the regular hospital in San Fierro, including at and around the hospital itself. The rest of that hospital's yellow-bordered area still leads to the hospital.

Same as before, the dimmer lines are active borders before Yay Ka-Boom-Boom, when the three northmost hospitals and police stations are disabled. Before The Green Sabre, only the two hospitals and one police station in Los Santos are enabled. The border line between the hospitals then is not drawn but you can draw it by continuing the existing line if you really need it.

It was a pain to locate the explicitly coded borders but luckily the lines were horizontal and vertical. Thank you Rockstar for adding the extra protrusion in water near the SF airport in the hospital map! It was as exiting to trace as it is sensible. I guess the map layout has slightly changed after those areas were defined.

For locating the lines I found the game map more useful than the aerial one. I thought some may prefer it for planning as well. I can very easily make updated aerial maps (full resolution or smaller) as well if anyone wants.

Here are new, hopefully final versions of the hospital and police station area maps. Can't leave anything half-finished... I doubt there are any more useful death/bust warps for any%, but at least this could benefit 100% runners. I still haven't tested all the old lines. If you find a wrongly predicted spot, please tell and I'll investigate and correct it.

Generally you always respawn at the nearest enabled hospital (red cross) to where you die or the nearest enabled police station (blue cross) to where you get busted. Some areas are exceptions, but even then you normally respawn at the hospital/station that is in the same area as you on the map. Katie Zhan (green cross and border) is a special case. If you're dating her, you respawn at her house if you died within 1500 meters of it. This eats most of the area of the regular hospital in San Fierro, including at and around the hospital itself. The rest of that hospital's yellow-bordered area still leads to the hospital.

Same as before, the dimmer lines are active borders before Yay Ka-Boom-Boom, when the three northmost hospitals and police stations are disabled. Before The Green Sabre, only the two hospitals and one police station in Los Santos are enabled. The border line between the hospitals then is not drawn but you can draw it by continuing the existing line if you really need it.

It was a pain to locate the explicitly coded borders but luckily the lines were horizontal and vertical. Thank you Rockstar for adding the extra protrusion in water near the SF airport in the hospital map! It was as exiting to trace as it is sensible. I guess the map layout has slightly changed after those areas were defined.

For locating the lines I found the game map more useful than the aerial one. I thought some may prefer it for planning as well. I can very easily make updated aerial maps (full resolution or smaller) as well if anyone wants.

Attachments:

gtasa_hospital_map.png

gtasa_police_map.png

S.

2013-03-10 10:53:58 am

Allright, it ain't a territory skip, but at least it's something.

Turns out territories are considered 'taken over' after only two waves, so just start vigilante/taxi driver/pimping/freight a few seconds after round 2 is done. (After the message "you survived the 2nd round" disappears, to be exact).

I tested this and so far all the territories I checked work (contrary to what I said in my stream, where I checked my stats DURING earlier mentioned message, so it didnt count.)

This essentially skips the third round of gang territory, but more important: The long wait beforehand.

The territories will end up being some kind of mixed blurbed color (lime green or grey, depending on who the other gang was (vagos & ballas respectively). This makes it so that theres both homies and other gang members in that area, which could make Los Desperados a bit more painful though because of the jumping out thing).

hitmanatee

2013-03-10 11:42:24 am

Grats on race S.

Joshimuz

2013-03-10 12:21:30 pm

Quote:

The territories will end up being some kind of mixed blurbed color (lime green or grey, depending on who the other gang was (vagos & ballas respectively). This makes it so that theres both homies and other gang members in that area, which could make Los Desperados a bit more painful though because of the jumping out thing).

That might actually be a good thing, if there are enemy gang members despite you having the territory, it will allow you to start another gang war more easily. The only time you ever need your gang members is for that mission yeah.

Patrick

Edit history:

Patrick: 2013-03-14 04:02:25 am

Patrick: 2013-03-10 01:06:11 pm

Patrick: 2013-03-10 01:00:16 pm

Patrick: 2013-03-10 12:59:15 pm

Patrick: 2013-03-10 12:57:41 pm

2013-03-10 12:56:19 pm

edited the 1st paragraph 5min after posting
~~That idea just came to me Josh,~~ S, your find is even more awesome than I thought. By waiting 5s until the start of the 3rd wave, you can start the next war immediately after 'cancelling' the last one. You just need to drive to the next territory in the first wave of the gang war so that in the third wave the enemies are in reach and you stand in the next territory. That is so awesome. :-D

Jizzy (save strat): You can kill the drivers from a distance, the rest is a piece of cake then. I believe that the cars have an invisible spook-o-meter, so keep distance. I have not tested it in depth, but just doing it like always, just being a bit nearer, should do the trick.

Gray Imports: the bike driving strat is more consistent than I thought, just driving through at full speed killing enemies as secondary 'consistency increasing strat' (love that 'phrase' :-D). At the end, you run over the russian in his room. As a backup strat (popped tire) it might be faster to shoot him dead asap and getting a crappy car behind the wall (you can jump over it) than waiting, but I haven't tested that yet.

[b]edited the 1st paragraph 5min after posting[/b]
[s]That idea just came to me Josh, [/s] S, your find is even more awesome than I thought. By waiting 5s until the start of the 3rd wave, you can start the next war immediately after 'cancelling' the last one. You just need to drive to the next territory in the first wave of the gang war so that in the third wave the enemies are in reach and you stand in the next territory. That is so awesome. :-D

Jizzy (save strat): You can kill the drivers from a distance, the rest is a piece of cake then. I believe that the cars have an invisible spook-o-meter, so keep distance. I have not tested it in depth, but just doing it like always, just being a bit nearer, should do the trick.

Gray Imports: the bike driving strat is more consistent than I thought, just driving through at full speed killing enemies as secondary 'consistency increasing strat' (love that 'phrase' :-D). At the end, you run over the russian in his room. As a backup strat (popped tire) it might be faster to shoot him dead asap and getting a crappy car behind the wall (you can jump over it) than waiting, but I haven't tested that yet.

S.

2013-03-10 01:18:56 pm

Using the enemies that spawn in the third wave to start war in another territory is genius. Why can't I think of such awesome stuff :p

Patrick

Edit history:

Patrick: 2013-03-10 01:41:13 pm

Patrick: 2013-03-10 01:26:33 pm

Patrick: 2013-03-10 01:24:18 pm

2013-03-10 01:21:49 pm

as I said in josh's chat, the genius idea was your's. that my idea popped into anyone's head was just a matter of time.
E: afaik, all my very good ideas just popped into my head and were not the result of complete (think about every option available), anti-dogma ('x doesnt work'/'the right strat is this one, no need to think again about it') thinking. IMO, those are the most impressive ones, but not necessarily the most awesome ones, those are too separate things.

E: I always forget this: thank you nixixix for that whole death/cop map testing. :-D

Nixixix

2013-03-10 01:31:02 pm

Great find S! I'm so surprised that this works. Stupid game! Grin

Sub-6:09 SS looking ever more inevitable.

To save others from testing, this works in none of the missions where you need to take territories, because you can't activate a sub-mission then. Also "fleeing" the area during the third wave leaves the zone gray but doesn't advance the mission. I even tested doing Grove 4 Life by half-taking the first territory and then fully taking a second one. The game ignores the first one and you'd need to take a third one to complete the mission.

Joshimuz

2013-03-10 04:42:25 pm

I think a thanks for all are in order. Since when this started I was really the only one doing this, since then so many people have pitched in, if we keep up like this, we're going to completely break this game eventually XD

Next target sub 5? Tongue

S.

2013-03-10 07:46:30 pm

We can route all we want, but Josh is actually the person pulling it all off and glueing everything together. Also, try getting sub 7 before you start talking about sub 5 <_< Cheesy