Megaman Network Transmission

Zyre

Edit history:

Zyre: 2011-01-21 11:35:04 pm

2011-01-21 11:34:50 pm

The Speedrunning Teacher

Results of tonight's endeavors:

15 Game Over screens
2 saved games
10 Sanity points lost (according to viewers, I wouldn't be able to verify until tomorrow anyways)

Notes about stages (segments):
Fireman - 7 mins is the goal time, pretty easy to get.
Gutsman - Need to find reliable weapon chips to hit him with. Guns (Cannons, Shotgun, V-Gun, etc. The ranged stuff) works well, and so do bombs. Also need to see if there is a good pattern to get him into (if you can manipulate his attacks).
*Note: Only managed to save up to here.
Needleman - Stage isn't bad (Mushrooms are annoying and HURT), almost have a reliable attack pattern for him. Ranged for sure, possibly bombs. Swords work, but very, very risky thanks to his Insta-death attack.
Iceman - Practice the stage.
Quickman - Practice the stage - especially the insta-death beams.

MAS8705

2011-01-22 01:02:26 am

SDA Apprentice -- (3-1)

the sanity point system works on how many times you repeat a stage and/or die, and considering that more than half of them were from Gutsman alone, I'm surprised that I didn't take more! Not to mention that you are still replenishing your points since you cashed in almost all your points working on SoA...

But in all seriousness the practice runs looked great... There is a reason why not many people are jumping on the chance to speed run this game and you did demonstrate a few reasons why that is... All the same, I wish you the best of luck as always on your future endeavors and hope you don't lose what little sanity points you have left... *thumbs up*

Garlyle

2011-01-22 03:07:23 am

That Guy

Fun side note time: The game only gives you 10 save slots!

Gutsman is definitely taken down much -safer- with ranged weapons, because he can opt to counter you really fast with a guts punch. He'll also do it if you slide under him though, which will happen if he gets close... and taking too long really does leave whether or not he does up to chance. If you could manage to hit him with swords when he's jumping that would by FAR be the easiest and safest way, but... I don't know if he can be manipulated into that.

I need to get back into timing out these. Shame I missed the stream!

Zyre

2011-01-22 08:06:11 am

The Speedrunning Teacher

10 slots...good thing I have two memory cards then. I'll only need one for when I'm recording (I can overwrite the first few slots as they will be done first), but for practicing the stages (which is a MUST), I'll need them both.

Gutsman doesn't use Guts Punch every time you get close IIRC. He'll use it only if you linger in his personal space for too long. So if I'm quick in moving close and sliding under him...

Sir VG

2011-01-22 08:38:49 am

Fucking Weeaboo

If you have a Wii, there is homebrew out there that allows you to backup/restore GC files. I should look up what it is again. I'm pretty sure it's on Wiibrew.org though.

Garlyle

2011-01-22 07:32:40 pm

That Guy

It's less him getting close, and more about the fact that if you slide under him, he tends to GutsPunch you the moment you pop up on the other side of him. If it is indeed time-based it might very well be something that can be dealt with by hesitating, if need be, and seeing if you can trigger the punch while you're sliding (as opposed to standing).

Zyre

Edit history:

Zyre: 2011-01-27 02:59:34 pm

2011-01-27 02:57:24 pm

The Speedrunning Teacher

Not too much to say this time around except...

I finally got a save after Needleman! After more failures to beat him, I bought the Wood Armor from Higsby's shop to see if it made a difference. And sure enough, it did. Instead of getting Needleman's HP down to only half or a third left, I was able to survive longer, nearly beating him many times. It was only luck that I did beat him once. Ranged is still the way to go, but I'm not as sure about bombs. Swords are a possibility, but I can't get too close to him or he uses his short range attack that HURTS! Not to mention that the animation when you use a sword is long. Anyways, I'll be trying to beat him again, working on getting an idea for how long his stage will take. I don't think it will be long, as when I started the save had 16 minutes on the game timer, and had 20 minutes when I saved after him - and that was including one or two deaths.

EDIT: Before I forget, I'm thinking that I'll be able to stream again tomorrow night. I would like to start at about 7 PM Mountain Time like last week.

Not too much to say this time around except...

I finally got a save after Needleman!  After more failures to beat him, I bought the Wood Armor from Higsby's shop to see if it made a difference.  And sure enough, it did.  Instead of getting Needleman's HP down to only half or a third left, I was able to survive longer, nearly beating him many times.  It was only luck that I did beat him once.  Ranged is still the way to go, but I'm not as sure about bombs.  Swords are a possibility, but I can't get too close to him or he uses his short range attack that HURTS!  Not to mention that the animation when you use a sword is long.  Anyways, I'll be trying to beat him again, working on getting an idea for how long his stage will take.  I don't think it will be long, as when I started the save had 16 minutes on the game timer, and had 20 minutes when I saved after him - and that was including one or two deaths.

EDIT: Before I forget, I'm thinking that I'll be able to stream again tomorrow night.  I would like to start at about 7 PM Mountain Time like last week.

Zyre

2011-01-28 09:39:03 pm

The Speedrunning Teacher

Alright, for those that didn't get to see the stream, here's what we've discovered:

Default chips are my best friends. Since we can switch which chip is the default chip mid-stage, I can guarantee some of the right chips I want for bosses. This has application in a few parts of the run so far, but more testing will be necessary to see how far and where.

We've got an order down for the first set of bosses. Quickman will fall first, followed by Needleman, Brightman, and Iceman. Quickman's stage has a few fire viruses (sp?) that will help in taking down Needleman (which has been a pain...until now Cheesy

).

RegUp, MemUp, and PowerUp items are being looked at. By suggestion, trying to max Attack and getting level 3 Charge will be a start on how useful/necessary PowerUps will be. RegUp and MemUp will be tested by chip use.

Lastly, we need to see if there is a chip or two that speed up the miniboss fight on Iceman's stage.

Quite the list, eh? If I forgot something, let me know. Tongue

Zyre

2011-02-01 02:00:06 pm

The Speedrunning Teacher

Alright. I've gotten Quickman's stage down pretty good (only rarely do I get killed by the insta-death beams) and can make it to Quickman himself.

However, like all bosses, this guy is a pain. I can get him into a good pattern though, but because there is a little randomness to him he will sometimes break the pattern on his own. I have successfully defeated him, but only once so far out of...20 tries? Anyways, I'll be working on him some more. Most notably is the need to have several Cannons available to me by the time I reach him, which means that I'll need to rely on some lucky chip draws to take out some of the small fry in the stage.

Zyre

2011-02-02 08:55:43 pm

The Speedrunning Teacher

Quadruple post update time!

Quickman is getting *somewhat* easier. I was able to beat him twice tonight, but not without losing several times. Ranged shots are still the best against him, although an occasional sword hit is possible. I believe that I've starting understanding what triggers him to act in certain ways after he gets hit (not his shield, he himself). But, I'm not certain, and honestly this game isn't trustworthy in making 'tells.'

I'm thinking that getting two RegUps will be good, as that will give me 24 MB of regular memory - enough to default most of the chips. I say this because I was successful at beating Brightman in about 30 seconds with only three TreeBom1s and 24 MB is the requirement to default them. Plus, the RegUps aren't too far off from the path that I've been taking. Quickman's stage has one that is only seconds away, and Brightman's stage has one that is near the path I take anyways.

Another bonus is the Giant Heater (that red fish that breaks into smaller fish). I was successful at beating it by playing cautiously and using Mini- and Lilbombs. Beating it is one thing, but beating it fast is still another. Which brings me to Iceman. He's a pushover, except for that Ice Bomb attack of his. He shoots out six snowflakes (3 on each side of him) that shoot out spikes from the ground when they land. These spikes are either high damage, or Insta-death. Either way, I need to dodge them. Other than that, he should be easy with normal chips.

Quadruple post update time!

Quickman is getting *somewhat* easier.  I was able to beat him twice tonight, but not without losing several times.  Ranged shots are still the best against him, although an occasional sword hit is possible.  I believe that I've starting understanding what triggers him to act in certain ways after he gets hit (not his shield, he himself).  But, I'm not certain, and honestly this game isn't trustworthy in making 'tells.'

I'm thinking that getting two RegUps will be good, as that will give me 24 MB of regular memory - enough to default most of the chips.  I say this because I was successful at beating Brightman in about 30 seconds with only three TreeBom1s and 24 MB is the requirement to default them.  Plus, the RegUps aren't too far off from the path that I've been taking.  Quickman's stage has one that is only seconds away, and Brightman's stage has one that is near the path I take anyways.

Another bonus is the Giant Heater (that red fish that breaks into smaller fish).  I was successful at beating it by playing cautiously and using Mini- and Lilbombs.  Beating it is one thing, but beating it fast is still another.  Which brings me to Iceman.  He's a pushover, except for that Ice Bomb attack of his.  He shoots out six snowflakes (3 on each side of him) that shoot out spikes from the ground when they land.  These spikes are either high damage, or Insta-death.  Either way, I need to dodge them.  Other than that, he should be easy with normal chips.

Garlyle

Edit history:

Garlyle: 2011-02-03 03:18:10 pm

Garlyle: 2011-02-03 02:15:26 pm

2011-02-03 12:10:45 pm

That Guy

30 seconds for Brightman? That's... not fast enough at all.

Some testing with my methodology of doing it came in with results as bad as 14 seconds and several hits (Definitely more than you could survive with no HP memories)... and at best came in at 6 seconds with no damage whatsoever. It uses TreeBom1 chips as well.

Like I said originally - the strategy is to throw the bomb - usually while jumping - and then shoot him with the buster BEFORE the bomb connects with him. This triggers his shield and moment of invincibility with the buster, leaving him open to take damage from the treebomb -immediately- when it wears off (or at worst when he lands from his jump). I wish I could record this for you D:

Also: RegMemory will probably only be seen on a single segment playthrough, and the first three available are DenArea3 (requiring a side trip), Bank area 1 (requiring either a Dash or DoubleJump), and WaterWorks 2 (Just land to the left when diving down the pit right after the teleporting blocks).

30 seconds for Brightman?  That's... not fast enough at all.

Some testing with my methodology of doing it came in with results as bad as 14 seconds and several hits (Definitely more than you could survive with no HP memories)... and at best came in at 6 seconds with no damage whatsoever.  It uses TreeBom1 chips as well.

Like I said originally - the strategy is to throw the bomb - usually while jumping - and then shoot him with the buster BEFORE the bomb connects with him.  This triggers his shield and moment of invincibility with the buster, leaving him open to take damage from the treebomb -immediately- when it wears off (or at worst when he lands from his jump).  I wish I could record this for you D:

Also: RegMemory will probably only be seen on a single segment playthrough, and the first three available are DenArea3 (requiring a side trip), Bank area 1 (requiring either a Dash or DoubleJump), and WaterWorks 2 (Just land to the left when diving down the pit right after the teleporting blocks).

Zyre

2011-02-03 06:09:06 pm

The Speedrunning Teacher

Quote from Garlyle:

30 seconds for Brightman? That's... not fast enough at all.

True. I was playing a little cautiously, and the number is but a rough estimate. I was just glad that I had a good fight and was able to make a save after him for testing.

Quote from Garlyle:

RegMemory will probably only be seen on a single segment playthrough, and the first three available are DenArea3 (requiring a side trip), Bank area 1 (requiring either a Dash or DoubleJump), and WaterWorks 2 (Just land to the left when diving down the pit right after the teleporting blocks).

Actually I am able to get the one in Bank Area 1 with just a regular jump. The gap between the platforms is small enough that if I take out the virus hovering over it, I can easily get across with a jump. Combine it with the WaterWorks 2 one, and that is 24 which is enough to default to the Lilbombs in time for the Giant Heater. Like you said, this may be more for a single segment run, but I don't want to count it out just yet.

[quote="Garlyle"]30 seconds for Brightman?  That's... not fast enough at all.[/quote]
True.  I was playing a little cautiously, and the number is but a rough estimate.  I was just glad that I had a good fight and was able to make a save after him for testing.

[quote="Garlyle"]RegMemory will probably only be seen on a single segment playthrough, and the first three available are DenArea3 (requiring a side trip), Bank area 1 (requiring either a Dash or DoubleJump), and WaterWorks 2 (Just land to the left when diving down the pit right after the teleporting blocks).[/quote]
Actually I am able to get the one in Bank Area 1 with just a regular jump.  The gap between the platforms is small enough that if I take out the virus hovering over it, I can easily get across with a jump.  Combine it with the WaterWorks 2 one, and that is 24 which is enough to default to the Lilbombs in time for the Giant Heater.  Like you said, this may be more for a single segment run, but I don't want to count it out just yet.

Garlyle

2011-02-03 10:44:21 pm

That Guy

Oh, you can make it with a jump? Okay, cool; from the way the maps were I thought for sure it was too low of a cieling. Guess I need to play this more and find out for myself @_@

For bosses, if you make a note of what chips you have at any given time, you can always go back and test/attempt/etc afterwards using the Battle Simulator. The only trick would be adjusting for the expected MP at any given fight. Speaking of which... MP Upgrades are something we should probably start thinking about soon. 90mb is fine when you're just using cannons and stuff, but even with regeneration, being able to pull out three (probably four for a margin-of-error) 24mb TreeBombs might be a little tricky in execution when there's no deaths or acceptable slowdown.

Do you plan to stream again tomorrow? (today?)

Zyre

2011-02-03 11:30:59 pm

The Speedrunning Teacher

Quote from Garlyle:

Do you plan to stream again tomorrow? (today?)

Possibly. I'm going out at about the same time that I would stream, and depending on when I get back, I may stream but it will be late. Saturday is a good possibility though. I'll post what the verdict is going to be in my stream thread, so keep an eye on that.

Garlyle

Edit history:

Garlyle: 2011-02-25 07:30:59 pm

Garlyle: 2011-02-25 07:30:58 pm

2011-02-25 07:24:07 pm

That Guy

Decided to do some screwing around.

I think the value of making QuickMan the first target in his group is going to work out a little differently in practice. Now that I've actually replayed his stage, there's only ONE fire-type virus that gets in our way, and it's a Heat-V wolf. I think the value of taking him on first will come more from getting the money to have the Heat-V chips between that and Higureya to take out Needleman (It takes 5; and unless you didn't buy anything from Numberman the first time there, you won't have the 3500 needed for that). Also this stage is a huge pain in the ass, since you have to basically flawless it; I'm just not sure if any other chips would help you take down QuickMan faster since that's the real problem (You'll use maybe six-eight cannons throughout the rest of the stage anyway)

Also it only occurs to me now... you wouldn't happen to know any good ways to deal with the giant Yo-yo ship in Star Man's stage... would you? Because seriously - it's not like it's hard to dodge it but it's ridiculously difficult to KILL it.

Decided to do some screwing around.

I think the value of making QuickMan the first target in his group is going to work out a little differently in practice.  Now that I've actually replayed his stage, there's only ONE fire-type virus that gets in our way, and it's a Heat-V wolf.  I think the value of taking him on first will come more from getting the money to have the Heat-V chips between that and Higureya to take out Needleman (It takes 5; and unless you didn't buy anything from Numberman the first time there, you won't have the 3500 needed for that).  Also this stage is a huge pain in the ass, since you have to basically flawless it; I'm just not sure if any other chips would help you take down QuickMan faster since that's the real problem (You'll use maybe six-eight cannons throughout the rest of the stage anyway)

Also it only occurs to me now... you wouldn't happen to know any good ways to deal with the giant Yo-yo ship in Star Man's stage... would you?  Because seriously - it's not like it's hard to dodge it but it's ridiculously difficult to KILL it.

Zyre

2011-02-25 09:40:40 pm

The Speedrunning Teacher

Hard to say about Star Man's stage, I haven't gotten there just yet so I can't say. Right now I'm looking at the best way to kill Elec Man. But you can imagine that I'll get to Star Man soon enough.

Garlyle

Edit history:

Garlyle: 2011-02-26 01:36:19 am

Garlyle: 2011-02-26 01:34:02 am

Garlyle: 2011-02-26 12:34:54 am

Garlyle: 2011-02-26 12:34:46 am

2011-02-26 12:19:33 am

That Guy

My vote on ElecMan still goes to Spice chips. They're not necessarily very fast, but like I outlined - one use is cheap (Given that you'll probably be burning all of your MP using DoubleJumps to speed through his stage this is sort of important!), can hit him 3-4 times, is really good to use because of his pattern, and still does 80 damage each.

The other options are Swords (also cheap and do about as much damage but you'll have to use more), or TreeBombs like Brightman; the trick is, even if his position is easy to manipulate, tricking ElecMan into appearing on top of a seed is actually pretty tough. The advantage to this method would be that you'd need far fewer hits, leading to him making far less lightning strikes; the disadvantage is that treeseeds consume WAY more MP than other methods. And as I haven't made it to ElecMan's stage yet... yeah.

I think - if it can be pulled off - that the chip that Needleman drops might be able to be lined up perfectly to kill the StarMan midboss in one shot. I really hope this is the case. Apparently things with wide hit radiuses can make this easier according to one guide, so I'm gonna have to give that a shot.

Star Man's stage in general I forsee being an absolute nightmare, along with the Zero Account, because aura viruses; everything before (And almost everything after!) should actually be pretty easy barring the whole "die in one hit" part of things.

EDIT: According to one guide's statistics for enemy damage output, we will probably want to pick up a total of 4 HP memories, putting us at a total of 160 HP - this is enough to survive one hit from the LifeVirus' first phase. We'll definitely want three of those before fighting StarMan, as his star crash (The crazy hard to avoid piece of crap one) does 120 damage.

EDIT 2: Holy crap. I had no idea max rapid buster was that ridiculous... also how incredibly easy avoiding the Life Virus' attacks should be...

My vote on ElecMan still goes to Spice chips.  They're not necessarily very [i]fast[/i], but like I outlined - one use is cheap (Given that you'll probably be burning all of your MP using DoubleJumps to speed through his stage this is sort of important!), can hit him 3-4 times, is really good to use because of his pattern, and still does 80 damage each.

The other options are Swords (also cheap and do about as much damage but you'll have to use more), or TreeBombs like Brightman; the trick is, even if his position is easy to manipulate, tricking ElecMan into appearing on top of a seed is actually pretty tough.  The advantage to this method would be that you'd need far fewer hits, leading to him making far less lightning strikes; the disadvantage is that treeseeds consume WAY more MP than other methods.  And as I haven't made it to ElecMan's stage yet... [i]yeah[/i].

I think - if it can be pulled off - that the chip that Needleman drops might be able to be lined up perfectly to kill the StarMan midboss in one shot.  I [i]really[/i] hope this is the case.  Apparently things with wide hit radiuses can make this easier according to one guide, so I'm gonna have to give that a shot.

Star Man's stage in general I forsee being an absolute nightmare, along with the Zero Account, because aura viruses; everything before (And almost everything after!) should actually be pretty easy barring the whole "die in one hit" part of things.

EDIT: According to one guide's statistics for enemy damage output, we will probably want to pick up a total of [i]4[/i] HP memories, putting us at a total of 160 HP - this is enough to survive one hit from the LifeVirus' first phase.  We'll definitely want three of those before fighting StarMan, as his star crash (The crazy hard to avoid piece of crap one) does 120 damage.

EDIT 2: [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5uk1N-c7q4#t=8m45s]Holy crap[/url].  I had no idea max rapid buster was [i]that[/i] ridiculous... also how incredibly easy avoiding the Life Virus' attacks should be...

Zyre

2011-02-26 08:19:27 am

The Speedrunning Teacher

Quote from Garlyle:

EDIT 2: Holy crap. I had no idea max rapid buster was that ridiculous... also how incredibly easy avoiding the Life Virus' attacks should be...

Yeah, his first phase is the harder of the two. So if his attacks aren't that bad, then he should be a pushover compared to the other bosses...

As for the buster, yeah, max rapid is insane. Combine that with max power and you can see how fast the Life Virus's health went down.

I should also mention that I started a new save - this one is going to be collecting the Powerups so that we can compare just how fast it is to collect and use them (and if it makes bosses faster, since they don't flinch/flash when they take damage).

Garlyle

Edit history:

Garlyle: 2011-02-28 03:50:36 am

Garlyle: 2011-02-27 10:05:56 pm

Garlyle: 2011-02-27 09:58:00 pm

Garlyle: 2011-02-27 12:08:18 am

Garlyle: 2011-02-26 09:56:12 pm

Garlyle: 2011-02-26 09:50:38 pm

2011-02-26 09:48:47 pm

That Guy

Decided to sit down with the couple hours I had before work tonight and do some testing.

These times are WITH some unnecessary deaths, screwups, item collection, and so forth, so shave a minute or two off of most segments, possibly more or less, and you can get an idea what kind of times we'd necessarily be looking for?
This is following what might be a single-segment route, for the record.

Quote:

fireman 0:07
gutsman 0:15
quickman 0:19
needleman 0:24
brightman 0:29
iceman 0:39
colorman 0:44
elecman 0:48
side trip for powerups (Den Area 2; Numberman shop) 0:53
side trip for zero data 0:54
swordman 0:58

I noticed that Elecman's stage really does suck up almost more MP than I thought it did - I deliberately died at the start of Power Plant 2 to refill my MP so I could use my remaining doublejumps. Also, Spice Chips worked, but it can be tough to survive if the lightning doesn't co-operate!
I also noticed that one of the PowerUps I -should- have grabbed was in NeedleMan's stage. If I wanted it, I needed to have an Unlocker during the stage and I didn't realise it until afterwards (When I made my sidetrip later I got the one in DenArea 2 instead). Chalk up more money needed for Needleman's stage! I think the only way enough could be accumulated would be to not buy anything at all from NumberMan the first time you meet him.
Taking on BrightMan before IceMan was more so that I could use Satelite chips against IceMan. That little bastard is dangerous if you don't have AquaArmor and elec chips! And yes - his ice spike thing does like 160 damage or something if you don't have armor.
Also, in a single segment Brightman fight, if worse came to worse, I stumbled across a trick. Fire a buster shot over his head and then wait a few moments before launching your attack - the counterattack stance he gets into when you first threaten him with an attack will wear off and he'll be vulneurable within the second or so following. This can be used to hit him with swords, etc., if somehow your treebombs fail.

Finally, for the record, I've been picking up a lot of unnecessary powerups; I'm at about 300 HP and 128 MP at the moment, with 8 powerups and a 32mb default chip limit. Remember how I mentioned we might want four HP Memories? I am pretty certain that there are four that require an absolute minimum of detouring.

SwordMan's stage and fight are absolutely HILARIOUS with max Power/Charge buster. Just saying. You only need 3-4 doublejumps to skip OldArea1; if you wanted to get the extra PowerUp, you'd also want either four Dashes or some Double Jumps to spare to reach it. And finally, you'll want the luck to draw a couple of magnet bomb or satelite chips to kill two aqua-aura'd viri near the end. SwordMan himself dies really fast to maxed Power/Charge shots and everything in his stage takes at most two charged shots to kill, so.

EDIT:

Quote:

gravityman 1:03
starman 1:08

We're looking at possibly a sub-1:30 for the final product.

Also, uh... it deserves to be said: (PG-13 warning!)

FUCK ZERO.

He's a pain in the ass normally. I had, however, completely forgotten that he has an undodgeable attack worth 300 damage that he will attempt when he gets to about 1/3rd of his remaining health.

For a segmented run this means you'd better be ready to draw yourself a Z-Canon P.A. and use it because you're going to need the invincibility.
For a single-segment we're going to need luck and some draw manipulation like crazy in order to get one. Luckily we can reduce the wait time necessary! The green mystery data immediately prior to Gravity Man's stage can occasionally give out a free FullCust. Setting one of the cannons (Probably M-Cannons for use against Aura viri) as a default chip, followed by a minimum draw, should give us as many draws as we can. If we don't get it, we can pick nothing and then redraw instantly using that FullCust (if we get it!) and that should hopefully get us it.

EDIT EDIT: It might be possible to knock him out of this attack when he's charging up for it (He makes it pretty clear). You'd still want to have a chip on hand to do just that [possibly Roll since that's the only free Navi chip we'll be getting aside from Zero's in a Good End route].

EDIT EDIT EDIT: as demonstrated in this video, no, you can't even damage this bastard when he's charging up for his waves of death. And there's two. I'll have to test to see if multiple barriers, stonebody chips, etc. are capable of defending against this in an emergency.

Also: Remember those Heat-Vs we bought for Needleman? They seem to work great against the giant yo-ship boss in Star Man's stage! Unfortunately on my end, the buster isn't necessarily so hot against Star Man himself - he still triggers an attack when hit even if it's with buster shots, unlike other bosses.

Decided to sit down with the couple hours I had before work tonight and do some testing.

These times are WITH some unnecessary deaths, screwups, item collection, and so forth, so shave a minute or two off of most segments, possibly more or less, and you can get an idea what kind of times we'd necessarily be looking for?
This is following what might be a single-segment route, for the record.

[quote]fireman 0:07
gutsman 0:15
quickman 0:19
needleman 0:24
brightman 0:29
iceman 0:39
colorman 0:44
elecman 0:48
side trip for powerups (Den Area 2; Numberman shop) 0:53
side trip for zero data 0:54
swordman 0:58[/quote]
I noticed that Elecman's stage really does suck up almost more MP than I thought it did - I deliberately died at the start of Power Plant 2 to refill my MP so I could use my remaining doublejumps.  Also, Spice Chips worked, but it can be tough to survive if the lightning doesn't co-operate!
I also noticed that one of the PowerUps I -should- have grabbed was in NeedleMan's stage.  If I wanted it, [i]I needed to have an Unlocker during the stage[/i] and I didn't realise it until afterwards (When I made my sidetrip later I got the one in DenArea 2 instead).  Chalk up more money needed for Needleman's stage!  I think the only way enough could be accumulated would be to not buy anything at all from NumberMan the first time you meet him.
Taking on BrightMan before IceMan was more so that I could use Satelite chips against IceMan.  That little bastard is [i]dangerous[/i] if you don't have AquaArmor and elec chips!  And yes - his ice spike thing does like 160 damage or something if you don't have armor.
Also, in a single segment Brightman fight, if worse came to worse, I stumbled across a trick.  Fire a buster shot over his head and then wait a few moments before launching your attack - the counterattack stance he gets into when you first threaten him with an attack will wear off and he'll be vulneurable within the second or so following.  This can be used to hit him with swords, etc., if somehow your treebombs fail.

Finally, for the record, I've been picking up a lot of unnecessary powerups; I'm at about 300 HP and 128 MP at the moment, with 8 powerups and a 32mb default chip limit.  Remember how I mentioned we might want four HP Memories?  I am pretty certain that there are four that require an absolute minimum of detouring.

SwordMan's stage and fight are absolutely HILARIOUS with max Power/Charge buster.  Just saying.  You only need 3-4 doublejumps to skip OldArea1; if you wanted to get the extra PowerUp, you'd also want either four Dashes or some Double Jumps to spare to reach it.  And finally, you'll want the luck to draw a couple of magnet bomb or satelite chips to kill two aqua-aura'd viri near the end.  SwordMan himself dies really fast to maxed Power/Charge shots and everything in his stage takes at most two charged shots to kill, so.

EDIT:
[quote]gravityman 1:03
starman 1:08[/quote]
We're looking at possibly a sub-1:30 for the final product.

Also, uh... it deserves to be said: (PG-13 warning!)

[b]FUCK ZERO[/b].

He's a pain in the ass normally.  I had, however, [i]completely forgotten that he has an undodgeable attack worth 300 damage that he will attempt when he gets to about 1/3rd of his remaining health[/i].

For a segmented run this means you'd better be ready to draw yourself a Z-Canon P.A. and use it because you're going to need the invincibility.
For a single-segment we're going to need luck and some draw manipulation like crazy in order to get one.  [i]Luckily[/i] we can reduce the wait time necessary!  The green mystery data immediately prior to Gravity Man's stage can occasionally give out a free FullCust.  Setting one of the cannons (Probably M-Cannons for use against Aura viri) as a default chip, followed by a minimum draw, should give us as many draws as we can.  If we don't get it, we can pick nothing and then redraw instantly using that FullCust (if we get it!) and that should hopefully get us it.

EDIT EDIT: It might be possible to knock him out of this attack when he's charging up for it (He makes it pretty clear).  You'd still want to have a chip on hand to do just that [possibly Roll since that's the only free Navi chip we'll be getting aside from Zero's in a Good End route].

EDIT EDIT EDIT: as demonstrated [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7Yy4DQ4lXY#t=1m30s]in this video[/url], no, you [i]can't even damage[/i] this bastard when he's charging up for his waves of death.  And there's two.  I'll have to test to see if multiple barriers, stonebody chips, etc. are capable of defending against this in an emergency.

Also: Remember those Heat-Vs we bought for Needleman?  They seem to work great against the giant yo-ship boss in Star Man's stage!  Unfortunately on my end, the buster isn't necessarily so hot against Star Man himself - he still triggers an attack when hit even if it's with buster shots, unlike other bosses.

Garlyle

Edit history:

Garlyle: 2011-03-01 05:03:14 am

2011-03-01 05:02:32 am

That Guy

New post because ACHIEVEMENT!

There's no goddamn timer shown after the game is over unlike all the other BN games. Damnit all, I just had to do the final stage TWICE.

Quote:

zero 1:13
undernet trip 1 1:15
shadowman 1:19
pharaohman 1:27

I did manipulate a Z-Cannon for the last half of the Zero fight.

Pharaohman's stage took 8 minutes not so much because it was long, but rather because of a combination of deaths and the fact that I hit Numberman's shop on the way there (to stock up on SilverFists and a little extra HP/MP) and Higsby's afterwards (MPCharges, I also bought a FastGauge and a couple FullGauge but... didn't need 'em, except for one, meaning those could've been towards MPCharges)

I headed into the final stage with 400 HP, and 136 MP. My optimal folder draw for the first segment was DoubleJump, FireSword (The only two viri you kill in the opening segment are the wood types and this'll one-shot 'em), and Zero (for Firewall). I didn't realise that the recharge points during the final stage do NOT auto-refill your MP, and this is important because it means that you'll want to buy more than one MPCharge from Higsby before entering the grand finale (Probably about three - one so you can use Zero on the Firewall, one at some point after Firewall/during the boss rush, and one for right before or during the Life Virus fight.

The hardest parts of the finale are easily handling BrightMan and ElecMan again, surprisingly enough. FireWall is really easy and so are all of the other refights, and Life Virus is uh... Life Virus.

Since 'manual timing' usually goes until the final player input, the timer stops after the post-credits dialogue between Shadowman and his operator. According to my stopwatch, the final hit on Life Virus R occured at 1:37, with the full timer ending at 1:41

I am accepting nothing worse than 1:30 as a final time for this run, because I could have shaved about 2-3 minutes off the final stage alone, to be honest, if chip draws worked with me a little more and stuff. Nevermind the number of deaths I accepted.

New post because ACHIEVEMENT!

There's no goddamn timer shown after the game is over unlike all the other BN games.  Damnit all, I just had to do the final stage TWICE.

[quote]zero 1:13
undernet trip 1 1:15
shadowman 1:19
pharaohman 1:27[/quote]
I did manipulate a Z-Cannon for the last half of the Zero fight.

Pharaohman's stage took 8 minutes not so much because it was long, but rather because of a combination of deaths and the fact that I hit Numberman's shop on the way there (to stock up on SilverFists and a little extra HP/MP) and Higsby's afterwards (MPCharges, I also bought a FastGauge and a couple FullGauge but... didn't need 'em, except for one, meaning those could've been towards MPCharges)

I headed into the final stage with 400 HP, and 136 MP.  My optimal folder draw for the first segment was DoubleJump, FireSword (The only two viri you kill in the opening segment are the wood types and this'll one-shot 'em), and Zero (for Firewall).  [i]I didn't realise that the recharge points during the final stage do NOT auto-refill your MP[/i], and this is important because it means that you'll want to buy more than one MPCharge from Higsby before entering the grand finale (Probably about three - one so you can use Zero on the Firewall, one at some point after Firewall/during the boss rush, and one for right before or during the Life Virus fight.

The hardest parts of the finale are easily handling BrightMan and ElecMan again, surprisingly enough.  FireWall is really easy and so are all of the other refights, and Life Virus is uh... Life Virus.

Since 'manual timing' usually goes until the final player input, the timer stops after the post-credits dialogue between Shadowman and his operator.  According to my stopwatch, [b]the final hit on Life Virus R occured at 1:37, with the full timer ending at 1:41[/b]

I am accepting nothing worse than 1:30 as a final time for this run, because I could have shaved about 2-3 minutes off the final stage [i]alone[/i], to be honest, if chip draws worked with me a little more and stuff.  Nevermind the number of deaths I accepted.

Zyre

2011-03-01 08:32:22 am

The Speedrunning Teacher

Dang, man. You really helped out with this.

Did you go for any PowerUps? If you did, how many and where did you apply them? Of course, if you didn't, do you see any sort of need or use for them?

Garlyle

Edit history:

Garlyle: 2011-03-01 11:58:51 am

Garlyle: 2011-03-01 11:53:36 am

2011-03-01 11:51:40 am

That Guy

I collected 8 PowerUps, maxing out both Power and Charge.

1. Outer Net. When you're doing the GutsMan trip, when you take the warp back to the start, it's right next to it. No real time lost.
2. Garden Area 2. Or it should have been. I didn't realise you needed an Unlocker until well after the stage was clear, but it's right on the path. I replaced it with the PowerUp in Den Area 2, which is easy enough to get with DoubleJumps, but does require about a two-minute side trip as opposed to something that's hardly out of your way at all!
3. Shopping Area 2. It's right near the start of the area and takes only about a second to get.
>At this point, I put the three towards power for the purpose of helping to whittle down the Waterworks midboss.
4. Power Plant Area 1. It's only a second to take in terms of time, but it does need you to use another DoubleJump (or maybe just a Dash?) to get to it.
5. Power Plant Area 2. Right to your left when you reach the top of the stage. Again, practically instantaneous.
6-8. Since I'm now at the part where I have to go into the normal network anyway, I log in at Dex's house. I go all the way to Global 3, then turn around immediately (This creates the shortcut) and drop back down to Global 1 (Picking up an HP Memory quickly), then up to Outer Net, and DoubleJump up to the warp to head right to the end. This puts me right next to NumberMan's shop, and I have enough money at this point to buy all three PowerUps from him. Going backwards from Global 3 and double-jumping to the shortcut is also recommended for getting to Pharaohman later, if you haven't thought about this before!

Getting the PowerUps from Numberman at this point detours me by about a couple minutes, but it is a wonderful way to not have to rely completely on chips for the rest of the game - and since from now on everything takes much more damage and needs much more MP to kill, I can guarantee that in a single-segment run (Which I might just do myself!) I'll be doing this.

The charge shot is crazy useful at this point. SwordMan's stage starts with you skipping the entire first half of his stage with some Double Jumps, eating up most of your MP in the process, and pretty much everything during his stage - and all upcoming stages - not protected by an Aura is killed in two hits with the charged buster, excluding a couple enemy's in Pharaohman's stage. Even if they do take multiple hits and you'd want to use chips, following up hitting with the charged buster takes about the same time as using two chips in rapid succession but comes with the MP cost of only one.

As far as bosses go? You can likely do damage faster with repeated charge shots than a number of the weaker chips you're carrying (No time to farm powerful ones afterall!), due to a lack of flinching. This really REALLY helps against Pharaohman (flinches trigger him to attack, but not regular shots), though the effects can't be felt as well against Shadowman or Zero. It's also not necessarily so great against Brightman, Elecman, or Quickman in the boss refights, but makes every other boss fight so easy that you can focus purely on drawing chips to take them down. It saves you lots of MP during the Firewall fight (Zero the bottom turret, a couple bombs/woodseeds at the top one, and then charged busters to the core!) and lets you not have to worry about MP during the Life Virus fight. Not to mention being very capable of handling the majority of the boss rush.

I suppose that, if a method could be figured out for drawing chips that would work well enough to tide you over a little longer without your buster, there are other options to get PowerUps without the two-minute side trip:
*Buy them on the way to Pharaohman's stage - you'll be right next to Numberman anyway in the process of getting there! You'll miss out on its benefits for Sword/Gravity/Star/Zero stages though and honestly they can be pretty nasty.
*Get any three of the others...
>Old Area 2 ; requires a small but notable detour that also needs 4 dash or doublejump chips to be reached. You'll grab an HP Memory in the process too
>Vacant WWW Area 2 ; it's right on the path but needs an Unlocker
>Zero Account ; requires a notable detour ala Old Area 2's, including Double Jumps again, and you probably want to save the MP for Zero. There's an HP memory right next to it too.
>Den Area 2. Requires a separate trip in order to be reached, either with a piercing chip (A fist) and some careful movement, or just doublejumping to it from below. The trip to Numberman early takes only a little longer, so this is far from ideal.

As a side note? I used, at most, 9 Double Jumps (And that was for ElecMan's stage). If you were willing to take care of the enemy on the right and just go around, then you would probably only need a total of 7 Double Jumps. Since they do take a few extra seconds to farm, no need to have extras, etc etc.

I collected 8 PowerUps, maxing out both Power and Charge.

1. Outer Net.  When you're doing the GutsMan trip, when you take the warp back to the start, it's right next to it.  No real time lost.
2. Garden Area 2.  Or it [i]should[/i] have been.  I didn't realise you needed an Unlocker until well after the stage was clear, but it's right on the path.  I replaced it with the PowerUp in Den Area 2, which is easy enough to get with DoubleJumps, but [i]does[/i] require about a two-minute side trip as opposed to something that's hardly out of your way at all!
3. Shopping Area 2.  It's right near the start of the area and takes only about a second to get.
>At this point, I put the three towards power for the purpose of helping to whittle down the Waterworks midboss.
4. Power Plant Area 1.  It's only a second to take in terms of time, but it [i]does[/i] need you to use another DoubleJump (or maybe just a Dash?) to get to it.
5. Power Plant Area 2.  Right to your left when you reach the top of the stage.  Again, practically instantaneous.
6-8. Since I'm now at the part where I have to go into the normal network anyway, I log in at Dex's house.  I go all the way to Global 3, then turn around immediately (This creates the shortcut) and drop back down to Global 1 (Picking up an HP Memory quickly), then up to Outer Net, and DoubleJump up to the warp to head right to the end.  This puts me right next to NumberMan's shop, and I have enough money at this point to buy all three PowerUps from him.  Going backwards from Global 3 and double-jumping to the shortcut is also recommended for getting to Pharaohman later, if you haven't thought about this before!

Getting the PowerUps from Numberman at this point detours me by about a couple minutes, but it is a wonderful way to [i]not[/i] have to rely completely on chips for the rest of the game - and since from now on everything takes much more damage and needs much more MP to kill, I can guarantee that in a single-segment run (Which I might just do myself!) I'll be doing this.

The charge shot is crazy useful at this point.  SwordMan's stage starts with you skipping the entire first half of his stage with some Double Jumps, eating up most of your MP in the process, and pretty much everything during his stage - and all upcoming stages - not protected by an Aura is killed in two hits with the charged buster, excluding a couple enemy's in Pharaohman's stage.  Even if they [i]do[/i] take multiple hits and you'd want to use chips, following up hitting with the charged buster takes about the same time as using two chips in rapid succession but comes with the MP cost of only one.

As far as bosses go?  You can likely do damage faster with repeated charge shots than a number of the weaker chips you're carrying (No time to farm powerful ones afterall!), due to a lack of flinching.  This really REALLY helps against Pharaohman (flinches trigger him to attack, but not regular shots), though the effects can't be felt as well against Shadowman or Zero.  It's also not necessarily so great against Brightman, Elecman, or Quickman in the boss refights, but makes every other boss fight so easy that you can focus purely on drawing chips to take [i]them[/i] down.  It saves you lots of MP during the Firewall fight (Zero the bottom turret, a couple bombs/woodseeds at the top one, and then charged busters to the core!) and lets you not have to worry about MP during the Life Virus fight.  Not to mention being very capable of handling the majority of the boss rush.

I suppose that, if a method could be figured out for drawing chips that would work well enough to tide you over a little longer without your buster, there are other options to get PowerUps without the two-minute side trip:
*Buy them on the way to Pharaohman's stage - you'll be right next to Numberman anyway in the process of getting there!  You'll miss out on its benefits for Sword/Gravity/Star/Zero stages though and honestly they can be pretty nasty.
*Get any three of the others...
>Old Area 2 ; requires a small but notable detour that also needs 4 dash or doublejump chips to be reached.  You'll grab an HP Memory in the process too
>Vacant WWW Area 2 ; it's right on the path but needs an Unlocker
>Zero Account ; requires a notable detour ala Old Area 2's, including Double Jumps again, and you probably want to save the MP for Zero.  There's an HP memory right next to it too.
>Den Area 2.  Requires a separate trip in order to be reached, either with a piercing chip (A fist) and some careful movement, or just doublejumping to it from below.  The trip to Numberman early takes only a little longer, so this is far from ideal.

As a side note?  I used, [i]at most[/i], 9 Double Jumps (And that was for ElecMan's stage).  If you were willing to take care of the enemy on the right and just go around, then you would probably [i]only need a total of 7 Double Jumps[/i].  Since they do take a few extra seconds to farm, no need to have extras, etc etc.

Garlyle

Edit history:

Garlyle: 2011-03-06 10:27:49 am

Garlyle: 2011-03-06 10:26:37 am

Garlyle: 2011-03-06 10:23:37 am

2011-03-06 10:21:07 am

That Guy

Quote:

fireman 0:07:40
gutsman 0:13:38
quickman 0:17:26
needleman 0:21:15
iceman 0:28:26
brightman 0:33:48
colorman 0:39:51
elecman 0:44:16
swordman 0:56:00
gravityman 1:01:12
starman 1:06:48
zero 1:13:08
shadowman 1:20:15
pharaohman 1:27:10
i die to life virus 1:38:04

What you are reading: The times from my single-segment attempt this morning. Each boss' time is at the moment that the 'you won the fight!' music started playing.

Even with the fact that I screwed up Swordman's stage something fierce (The game refused to give me chips to deal with the aqua-aura viri in the second half and so I was trying to get around it but failed enough that I actually left the stage and restarted it), I was pretty much on par with my relatively sloppy segmented run, up until the finale (Where I foolishly thought that I drew DoubleJump, Zero, and Fireswords all at once - a perfect draw to start Undernet! - but it turned out I drew Roll, not Zero, and didn't notice until I was already fighting Firewall). Bad luck in the Brightman and Quickman fights cost me a lot of time too, but at the worst the run was shaping up to be about 1-2 minutes slower than a really sloppy segmented run. Zero also cost me - I didn't get any fullgauges or fastgauges pre-Gravityman, and the game refused to throw me a Z-Canon until I waited out two full custom gauges. And ultimately, the reason I lost to LifeVirus was that I didn't have my M-Cannons out. Being able to take down his aura from the 'safe spot' near the back, where you can easily see what attack is coming in time to dodge it (Fire and Elec attacks are particularly quick, sadly), would have made things much easier.

For the record: There were probably about 10+ deaths during this (Not including deliberate ones) and several things I really could have done better. The Iceman midboss fight was slow as hell because I forgot to switch Minibombs to default before a deliberate death; I entered stages a couple times then had to leave because I forgot to set certain default chips, etc.

I am getting more and more serious about a single-segment Network Transmission run, considering I just nearly did one. On a game I thought it would take weeks or months worth of practice to be able to do this on. Holy. Shit.

[quote]fireman  0:07:40
gutsman  0:13:38
quickman  0:17:26
needleman  0:21:15
iceman  0:28:26
brightman  0:33:48
colorman  0:39:51
elecman  0:44:16
swordman  0:56:00
gravityman  1:01:12
starman  1:06:48
zero  1:13:08
shadowman  1:20:15
pharaohman  1:27:10
i die to life virus  1:38:04[/quote]

What you are reading: [b]The times from my single-segment attempt this morning.[/b]  Each boss' time is at the moment that the 'you won the fight!' music started playing.

Even [i]with[/i] the fact that I screwed up Swordman's stage something fierce (The game refused to give me chips to deal with the aqua-aura viri in the second half and so I was trying to get around it but failed enough that I actually left the stage and restarted it), I was pretty much [i]on par[/i] with my relatively sloppy segmented run, up until the finale (Where I foolishly thought that I drew DoubleJump, Zero, and Fireswords all at once - a perfect draw to start Undernet! - but it turned out I drew Roll, not Zero, and didn't notice until I was already fighting Firewall).  Bad luck in the Brightman and Quickman fights cost me a lot of time too, but at the worst the run was shaping up to be about 1-2 minutes slower than a really sloppy segmented run.  Zero also cost me - I didn't get any fullgauges or fastgauges pre-Gravityman, and the game refused to throw me a Z-Canon until I waited out two full custom gauges.  And ultimately, the reason I lost to LifeVirus was that I didn't have my M-Cannons out.  Being able to take down his aura from the 'safe spot' near the back, where you can easily see what attack is coming in time to dodge it (Fire and Elec attacks are particularly quick, sadly), would have made things much easier.

For the record: There were probably about 10+ deaths during this (Not including deliberate ones) and several things I [i]really[/i] could have done better.  The Iceman midboss fight was slow as hell because I forgot to switch Minibombs to default before a deliberate death; I entered stages a couple times then had to leave because I forgot to set certain default chips, etc.

I am getting more and more serious about a single-segment Network Transmission run, considering [i]I just nearly did one[/i].  On a game I thought it would take weeks or months worth of practice to be able to do this on.  [i]Holy.  Shit.[/i]

MAS8705

2011-03-06 11:18:48 am

SDA Apprentice -- (3-1)

My my Mr. Garlyle, it seems you have officially set the bar on Network Transmission... Congrats on getting those times, I never would have imagined that this game ever getting close to 1:30...

I believe you said that you don't have any means to record the run, however if I recall correctly, the dazzle is currently going for $50, if you want to take that into consideration... Congrats again on a job well done so far...

Zyre

2011-03-06 10:49:06 pm

The Speedrunning Teacher

Dang, Garlyle, I may have to defer to you to get this speedrun done. Tongue

Still, the fact that we're starting to see how an SS of this game is possible just shows how well you are researching it. I need to work more on the segmented one. Who knows...if you can record, you could submit an SS of this when I submit a segmented one.