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Long live SF64!
Even though I've been too busy to record, I have been able to play through the final 2 segments of the game several times a week since classes started back. It's looking pretty good so far. The theme is to use compound grenade mines from a distance and the green tachyon weapon when plowing through large groups. I run straight for the next elevator switch and hit it, then I finish cleaning up the room and jump down the elevator shaft once it starts moving. That tactic generally works throughout the second half of the Forge level.

I've got 3 shortcuts ... one is a jump that skips the lift just before the invisible walkway... by jumping below the lift and falling down where the lift normally travels, I avoid the invisible scripted-death-surface that normally keeps those jumps from being possible. The invisible walkway I'm able to cross without using the phaser any now, so that's cool. Finally there's a jump just before destroying the core of the ship that skips another lift and some enemies I think. Like most of the game, there's no true sequence breaks, but the little shortcuts and tactics get celebrated just as well.

Maybe I can record this last bit when I go home for Fall Break in October. Who knows, we'll see. If anyone wants a crappy version of me doing the forge level, I should be able to manage that. I can find time to play occassionally, just not hours of time to actually get a near-perfect recording. Also, feel free to request it if you want to see what I have so far since I know my filefront has been completely purged by now. I'll try to record from VHS to DVD and then put stuff on youtube if there's a request for it. If not, there's no way I'll magically find time to do it.

So.... any new interest in Elite Force 2? Anyone else interested in EF1? Surely someone out there would find a segmented hard mode run a good challenge... I tried hard mode once and was wiped out right away on the first level. Definitely a different game on Hard.
You got a deletion wish?
I'd still like to see it.
Edit history:
Psonar: 2007-10-14 05:58:09 am
Long live SF64!
Alright, time for some proof that this run isn't completely dead... just before school started back in August, I managed a decent segment 11 covering the first half of the Forge. So what's new, well, now I've got it online! Here are the links!

Segment 11 - 'Forge1' [edit: has been improved, see later post...]
[filefront] - [youtube]

Segment 11 Times - Full Spreadsheet

Also, I've recently been trying to get a decent Segment 12 on the other half of the Forge level. I thought I had a good one, but then when I compared it to Jeditry's, it came up 10 seconds slower. That's pretty convincing evidence to me that I need to speed it up a bit.  Hopefully I'll have some time to put into speedrunning during my fall break this weekend.  Let me know what you all think about that Segment 11. I know it could be better, but after a lot of frustration I was happy with a solid run-through with no obvious blunders. The fact that it's a 29 second improvement on Jeditry is also confirmation that it's not that bad.

Speaking of improvements, I've also tabulated the Segment 10 times from earlier. They show that Segment 10 was a 50 second improvement. These two segments bring the total improvement up to 9:59 and the total time as of the 11th segment up to 1:06:18.  I'll be back with more news if I'm able to master that Segment 12 sometime soon.  It's not impossible to re-do Segment 11 depending on people's feedback. Enjoy the video!
Semi-retired FPS expert
hay, glad you're still on it!
Segment 11 looks quite messy, but there's nothing major where you lose time. If you want to re-do it then mainly for the optics.
Long live SF64!
Well I've been busy and I've managed  much cleaner version of segment 11 which saves 15 seconds off the one I posted previously - I'll let the computer handle the video compression overnight and upload the video tomorrow.  There's still likely another 15 seconds to be saved, but I'm keeping this one if I can't beat it with another round of attempts.  With the long skirmish at the end, there's likely 30 seconds that could be saved with enough luck and insane FPS skills, but I don't really have time for that kinda of luck manipulation, nor do I have the FPS skills to push the limit that far.  I think what I've got looks pretty darn good compared to the sloppy one I did in August.

Video coming soon!
Edit history:
Psonar: 2007-10-13 05:54:40 pm
Long live SF64!
Ok here's the video of the improved Segment 11:

Segment 11 (youtube)
Semi-retired FPS expert
This one looks great. I'd keep it!
Edit history:
Psonar: 2007-10-14 12:08:07 pm
Long live SF64!
Thanks! And if you thought that was good - wait until you see Segment 12!

There ya go:

Segment 12 is up!

There's a lot of great things in this segment, and I really had a fun time running it. I think this is a fitting last level in that sense. When I first started playing the Forge it seemed insane, but after picking it apart and understanding where every enemy spawns and getting much better at switching between weapons, I think it fell apart nicely. I managed to pull off an extra 45 seconds from your attempt. I'll upload the updated spreadsheet tomorrow.

All that's left is the boss, and this run is complete! I'm hoping I'll have some time tomorrow before I head back to school, because otherwise I'm not sure when I'll get to it. We shall see.

Enjoy!
Edit history:
JediTry: 2007-10-14 12:58:37 pm
Semi-retired FPS expert
"Only" 45 seconds? I thought my Forge was a mess... Grin

Going to watch soon and then comment on it... probably.

EDIT: Absolutely awesome segment! Are you sure it's only 45 seconds faster? You got some great shortcuts and checking out the spawning points really pays off! The final boss should be easy, and then you're ready to submit. Excellent.
Long live SF64!
Yeah I had a similar "only 45 sec?" reaction. I must be timing something differently... it is possible though that I might have spent too long killing enemies losing a few seconds, but I did by best to avoid that and cut straight to the next room. I'll re-time then and figure out where the time went, might even do a sort of room by room breakdown so we can do a side by side comparison. When I went to shoot the targets on the big core at the bottom of the Forge, I lost maybe 5 seconds due to trembling hands and bad aiming.
Edit history:
Psonar: 2007-10-16 08:18:08 am
Long live SF64!
Here's my updated spreadsheet with the times for segments 11 and 12 and the total time, total time saved and all that.

Times Spreadsheet

EDIT:
Ok, here's some timing I did to check on my improvement over Jeditry's run to see where the improvements occured:

Segment 12 Timing Comparison

It's not very clean looking, but the point is that, yes I really did only improve a few seconds. One place that I know I lost about 3 seconds is when I got health and Jeditry didn't just after the invisible walkway.  Watching the two side by side shows that while there is a big difference between the two when I take shortcuts, it doesn't add up to a whole lot.

....at least it looks good! Tongue

EDIT 2:

I did some practice runs of the Forge Boss, and comparing my times to Jeditry, I think I'll have a 15-20 second improvement. It would be more on the first half with knowing their spawn locations, but there is a lot of waiting where the dialogue is basically triggering the next harvester spawn. I'll see if I can get anything recorded this week!
Edit history:
Psonar: 2007-10-17 11:30:14 pm
Long live SF64!
Ok, I've recorded an attempt at the Forge Boss. I was eager to get something recorded, though this isn't quite submission quality yet, it shows my general tactics pretty well. Here's the youtube link:

Attempt at Segment 13

I haven't had a chance to do the timing because I've got to run to class, but let me know what you think.  It's always good to get some feedback while working towards the final version. Enjoy!
Semi-retired FPS expert
That looks pretty good. I don/t know how you could make it faster... Wink
Long live SF64!
Yeah I think that's within 5 seconds of the best speed I can really hope for, but I want the last segment to look nice you know. In the video I posted, I get hit once during the boss section, and I hit a snag just before entering the room at the very beginning. I want the final product to look like pure ownage instead of having signs of obvious sloppiness. It shouldn't take many more attempts to get a much better looking run of it recorded. The difficulty of the last segment isn't too bad, so I should be able to manage something better.

I've updated the spreadsheet again and included some new bells and whistles. This gives a pretty good idea of what the total time will be!

Near-Final Timing Spreadsheet
Long live SF64!
All right! I think I've got a keeper here!

Here's the final Segment!

I would hold back the final segment so that there's more anticipation for when it makes it onto SDA, but since there's fairly low interest in this run anyway, I figure I'll go ahead and get it out there.

It's not like uber-perfect, but I thought it was a pretty good execution of the boss fight, and I'm ready to be done with it.

If anything I might go back and re-do Segment 1 of all things since it contains that horrible bit of cutscene where I was an idiot and forgot to hit the skip cutscene button.  That first segment was insanely difficult to pull off the way I wanted it, but it just might be worth it.

Regardless, I intend to start on comments soon. There's a lot to write about for sure. Since I went way overboard on comments on my Star Fox 64 runs, and decided to go a bit more moderate on my Starfighter comments (which will probably never make it into verification), I think I'll go more on the moderate side for these comments. A few sentences up to 2 paragraphs max per segment explaining the run and such.  An intriguing thing to do would be an audio commentary.  I figure doing that might even make the run a worthwhile viewing for folks who haven't played the game.  We shall see.

For now enjoy the final segment, and any lurkers in the forum can feel free to say hello so that I know I'll have more than 3 viewers.  I do the run for SDA regardless of interest, but it's good to know folks are out there when the thread is quiet.
Edit history:
Psonar: 2007-11-01 03:22:09 pm
Long live SF64!
Here's an unexpected twist for you... I've improved segment 1! It's not much different, but it saves 2 seconds on the level and about 15 seconds on better cutscene skipping.  In my original 1st segment, I was so happy that I got a solid segment that I butchered the cutscene skipping, adding some very embarrassing and unnecessary time onto the video.  Needless to say, while this one has 2 or 3 sloppy moments, its smooth in all the right places and I think is a fitting 1st segment:

Segment 1 Improvement

In other news, I've been slowly chipping away at writing the comments, so this thing should be submitted very soon!
If it aint broke don't fix it.
Nice running, very smooth indeed.

Looking forward to the final run...
Yeah some nice running there. Cant wait to see the whole thing. I used to play this game a bit but got frustrated with the team always getting in the way. Loved it when one member on the team would just start shooting me in the back. Only way to stop him is to kill him then everyone shoots you and the mission ends. Do you have any plans to run EF2?
Long live SF64!
I'm glad you enjoyed what you've seen so far!

I don't have any actual plans to run EF2, but that's just because I don't have any speedrunning plans at the moment except to try and get my Starfighter run material submitted and the comments written for EF1... those tasks are keeping me plenty busy in whatever spare time I can find these days.

I have a feeling that EF2 might be a little over my head.  While EF1 is simplistic enough that an amateur FPS-er like myself might can make a decent run on it, FS2 is a much more sophisticated game.... that said, I have no clue what I'll do next.  All I can say is that I'll likely stick to segmented runs, even though I prefer single segment overall. Segmented runs are much more feasible to practice and record on a tight schedule.

Sorry for my lack of diligence with EF1 comments.  If all else fails, they will get done over Thanksgiving Break at the latest.  I've done all the general comments and html formatting, but the actual comments for each segment is where I'm at now.

Thanks for the feedback!
Long live SF64!
Just thought I'd post to say that I've been busily encoding all this stuff... I've encoded everything in all qualities from segment 1 through 9, and 13, and I'm trying to track down stuff for 10-12... 10 I'm pretty sure is on it's own DVD, and 12 should be on the one with 13, at the frames indicated in some old anrichan files, but I've got this fear in the back of my mind that segment 12 could be missing...

As far as comments go, I got a little further, but I've been the world's worst slacker on them... I've written comments up to like... Segment 3 or something.  Once I track down and encode all the videos I'm sure I'll get the comments out of the way and get this thing submitted at last.

And, yes I realize that there's no need to encode a run before there are an verifiers, but oh well, I'm having fun with batch code and anri-chan, and it's one more thing to do to put off writing comments!

Maybe this run will actually see the light of day...
You got a deletion wish?
Welcome back.
Semi-retired FPS expert
Hey, you're even worse than me when it comes to submitting, and that's quite something... Grin

Anyways, do it at your pace and let us know how it goes.
Long live SF64!
Quote:
Hey, you're even worse than me when it comes to submitting, and that's quite something... Grin

Anyways, do it at your pace and let us know how it goes.

LOL - yeah I guess you've got a point...

It wasn't a matter of slowness as much as I just dropped all efforts whatsoever for several months, then suddenly decided to tie up the loose ends and get the thing submitted, which required tracking down all the DVDs, tracking down the VHS tapes (segments 2-9 spanned 2 VHS tapes), recording the segments on the tapes over to DVD, then encoding all 5 versions of each segment, which was not a trivial task in my book, even with the blessings of anri-chan.  Segment 9 took about 30 hours to encode the HQ video alone. So anyway, I've had plenty of other things tugging me in other directions, and the work I needed to do just to get the run submitted was more than I felt like committing to in recent months.

Now, however, every segment has been encoded in all 5 versions, and I've written comments up through Segment 6.  It took me about 2 hours to write comments for Segment 5 as I watched it, so I expect the rest of the comments to take a few days, but I plan on making it a priority, so that I can get this over with.

When I get it submitted to the verification list, I'll likely start posting the rest of the segments to youtube to complete the collection that resides there.  If the run stagnates in verification, I'll probably make my own Archive.org topic like I did for Jeditry's run and post everything there, so that the files are available to folks.

Sorry for the inconsistent dedication, but I'm making an effort now to get this through for those who've been waiting on it.  That and it'd be a horrible waste not to submit it after I put a good deal of effort into it.  SDA needs Star Trek, and they're going to get it!
Long live SF64!
There - submitted....

FYI: The comments are 7976 words.

I've got to fix one of the segments because I messed up and included a few seconds of garbage before the segment starts, but that shouldn't be an issue.  Hopefully this will see the verification list this weekend.
Long live SF64!
Alrighty, it's on the verification list!

Anyone who can verify, please feel free to contact Mike!

Woohoo!

:party: :banana: :party: