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darbian: 2013-07-14 05:11:45 pm
Hi guys, I've been messing around with this game on and off for a couple months with the plan of someday doing 71 star runs.  I discovered a way to prevent the "Saving Complete" prompt from appearing after each star by filling up your Wii system memory:

1) Copy (or erase) your SMG2 save data
2) Fill up the Wii system memory (to the point where you have zero blocks free, since SMG2 save data only takes 1 block)
3)  At this point, when you return to the Wii menu a dialog pops up reporting that the system memory is full, and it will kick you over to the data management.  It'll keep doing this until you free up some space, preventing you from starting SMG2.  After trying a lot of different things I found that booting the Wii into maintenance mode (holding + and - when powering on) will override this message and allow you start the game.

Upon booting the game, you'll get this message:



I played through the first few stars and everything seems the same minus the omissions of the "Saving Complete" dialog.  I'd estimate this would save about a minute during a 71 star run.  Obviously this prevents the use of bank toad since you cannot have any existing save files.  I'm not familiar enough with the current routes to know if this would be faster than a 71 star bank toad run (I'm guessing not).

Edit:
I've tested this with SMG1 and confirmed that it works the same way - I got the first 2 stars in the game without seeing a save dialog.  Also, for some reason I'm no longer required to start the Wii up in maintenance mode, the dialog telling me there isn't any free space just stopped coming up for some reason.  Maybe after you bypass it once it never comes up again?
That's interesting, darbian. I'd like to play with this. How exactly did you fill up the Wii system memory?
I was in a fortunate position of having my memory almost filled up before I started testing this.  I took note of the free blocks I had, then moved a bunch of small files to an SD card (1-5 block files).  I found a forum posting somewhere that listed some of the titles on the Wii shop with their sizes.  I got a few free demos that nearly filled up my memory, then just filled in the remainder with some of the files I previously moved.

While messing around with Dolphin I found another potential way to play without saving, but I haven't tested it on the Wii yet.  I found that if I manually corrupted my save data, the game would tell me the data is corrupted and ask if the data should be deleted.  If you say no, it will allow you to continue without saving.  I know with VC titles at least, the Wii won't let you start them if the save data is corrupt (sits on a black screen), but I'm not sure about disc games.  I didn't test this one with SMG1 so I cannot say for sure that it does the same thing.
Regarding bank toad:  If it really made that much of a difference, between having those star bits available or not, it would probably just create a new category.  No big deal.
I've been doing some research in Dolphin to understand the mechanics of this game. Here's what I have so far:

General speed, distance, and timing info
Yoshi infinite flutters
Running speeds
Cloud suit's extended long jumps
Rolling Rock jumps
Camera effects on speed


Some highlights:

- Mario's max running speed is 13, Luigi's is 15, and Yoshi's is 18.

- The most difficult move so far is ground pounding directly out of a long jump. You need to press Z and spin at the same time. For a given Z press timing, your spin has a 1 frame window, and that window can move by 1 frame (randomly, at least from what I know so far).

- Do a midair spin before starting an infinite flutter. This will help you go slightly farther and faster. This idea was from jda7 (another SMG2 runner); I just managed to confirm it with data.

- Under certain conditions, long jumps with the cloud suit can continue increasing in speed for much longer than normal. This plays a vital role in the Fluffy Bluff star 1 shortcut, for example.

- The camera affects your midair speed. For tricks where you want to really maximize your jump distance, try to long jump east/west instead of north/south, if the camera controls will let you.


Each in-depth document has data spreadsheets and graphs of frame-by-frame distance and speed data. That way, you (as well as me in the future) can see what the analysis is based on.
This is great info, Yoshifan, very detailed work. This should help with many of the more precise tricks.
I'm not sure if this is known already, but in "Bowser's Galaxy Fortress" I managed to land on the platform at the top of the pole off of Yoshi in the final skip. Should be doable in an IL or segmented run. I'm working on a video compilation of new infinite flutter tricks I've been accumulating lately. All together, these tricks should save ~2 minutes in an SS. Should be up in a day or two!
Edit history:
yoshifan: 2013-10-19 09:45:49 pm
yoshifan: 2013-10-19 08:46:21 pm
Yeah, I've landed at the top of the pole a few times (and have heard of other people doing it too), but I guess there was never a video of it.

Also, I've been testing some World 1 levels in-depth. Here's a couple of relevant videos:

Sky Station 1 strategies

Fluffy Bluff 1 in 0:53.05


Will hopefully have a Yoshi Star 1 video soon, too. This stage can potentially go sub-1:30 from a new file. In addition to your new flutter there, nemi, using Yoshi at the last planet saves up to ~4 seconds (jda suggested this idea, I just managed to test it).
lol, I didn't even post that, what the hell? Someone's an imposter XD

Well, whoever's putting that video together, I'm looking forward to it Grin
Haha, what? That was uncalled for...

I still would have believed you, as ridiculous as it seems to save 2 minutes in already-broken levels. That Sky Station spin stomp you told me about was quite an eye opener, makes me wonder what other tricks could be out there.
I've landed on that platform a couple of times in practice too...on complete accident. Excited to see "nemi"'s video!
I did a test run of World 1 to see how much time can be saved over my 71 Star run with the new tricks. This run ended up being 1:13 faster. There are some silly mistakes, but it works as a timing test.




The IL strat can be used in Fearsome Fleet to grab the Comet Medal. This is at least 5 seconds faster than Neguro's method, and it's somewhat doable--as long as Yoshi is facing the Question Block when you reach it, you should be able to make it.




When doing the long-jump shortcut in Flipsville from the first planet to the third, there are a couple of ways to adjust the timing of the moving platforms to avoid having to wait. Taking the lower route across the third planet is faster, but adjusting the camera on the first planet is easier.




Also, here are a couple of IL runs, because why not:



World 1 run: This is absolutely awesome! Looks like you're playing this game even better than ever. This will be an excellent reference; I learned quite a few things from watching, and will be sure to try out your strategies and tweaks. I'll let you know if I find any faster strategies, but nothing sticks out to me at the moment.

I didn't imagine that the Fearsome Fleet IL route could be a somewhat consistent thing. It certainly looks amazing, so it would be great to include it. And nice breakdown of Flipsville; perhaps other levels can benefit from camera-adjustment strategies, too.

Just wondering, nemi, are you using Dolphin to test things now? Or are you finding and testing all these timesavers on console? Either way, if there's anything you're having trouble testing and are curious about, feel free to let me know and I can look into it.
<(^_^)>
you guys... what the heck. this is amazing.
I mostly test on console, so some execution details aren't tested/optimized. If I test on Dolphin, it's usually to see if a trick is possible or not. Dolphin runs at about 30% speed on my computer, so it's annoying to use sometimes.
trepidation
Ha! I watched this with my four year old and he was so confused. He kept asking why you went to the "wrong" planet, and why you were going so fast. He was also incredibly distraught that you were abandoning Yoshi over and over. I'm billing you for therapy nemi...

great work.
Ha ha, I apologize if your four year old suffers psychological harm because of witnessing Yoshi abuse.

Here's a possible strat for collecting coins for Cosmic Cove's Hungry Luma. This is potentially 10 seconds faster than what I used to do, which was taking a rightward detour after going through the tunnel. Unless I've missed a coin stash, they seem to be hard to come by in the first section of the level, so getting at least a couple from enemies is necessary. Since one of the coins I get is near the Comet Medal, I get that, hit the switch, and feed the Hungry Luma all at once. Since the Hungry Luma Launch Star permanently remains, you can safely get the main Star, and then return for the Secret Star.

Edit history:
yoshifan: 2013-11-07 11:47:40 pm
yoshifan: 2013-11-07 11:03:08 pm
yoshifan: 2013-11-07 10:57:54 pm
yoshifan: 2013-11-07 10:55:01 pm
yoshifan: 2013-11-07 10:54:13 pm
yoshifan: 2013-11-07 10:40:43 pm
Here are some minor timesavers in World 1 that aren't in nemi's latest World 1 run, or in my recent videos:


1. Sky Station 1 - On the second planet, after the triple jump + spin up from the octoombas: you can actually use a long jump (instead of a regular jump) to get onto the yellow elevator platforms. The key is to long jump diagonally, instead of straight east. This'll get you more height, because of the way the planet surface is curved.

jda told me about this trick. I haven't time-tested it, but I think it can save a tiny bit of time; having to go diagonally isn't too much of a hindrance, because you have to go slightly north to reach the tower anyway.


2. Sky Station 2 - On the glass cylinder, the hatch leading into the cylinder opens when you've reached a certain trigger area. The southwest corner of this trigger area sticks out a bit more than you might expect. Reach this point to make the hatch open:

(Image)

Knowing this doesn't actually save any time, because you can already reach the final elevators at the earliest useful time with nemi's route (any earlier, and the last elevator will be in the way). But knowing about the hatch-open trigger area might make it a bit easier to reach the final elevators in time.


3. Spin-Dig 1 - This is about the "pillar trick" (for lack of a better name) on the drill puzzle planet - the trick where you dig next to the pillar on one side, and come out on top of the pillar on the other side. The pillar trick can be done facing west, not just facing south; so you actually don't need to stop at all before drilling. However, since the positioning for the pillar trick is a little picky, doing it on the run makes it a little less consistent.


4. Spin-Dig 1 - The pillar trick can also be done from the other side, but the positioning is much more picky this time. Here's a screenshot of one time where it worked for me:

(Image)

If you use a strategy based around this, you can save 1 second. I don't think it's worth it.


5. Rightside Down S - After the first drop, there is a long-stemmed purple flower that you catapult off of. When you land from using this flower, don't hold the control stick. Just press A to jump as you land, and you will still have horizontal momentum. Then you can just spin and wall jump to get into the pipe.

This could also help to a lesser extent on the first Star. Maybe not so much pressing A as you land, but not touching the control stick as you land allows you to slide a tiny bit forward.


6. Fiery Flotilla 1 - At the beginning, there's a method following the normal path that is actually faster compared to doing the long jump over the railing. Without a landing cancel, you can get onto the thwomp while it's still at its highest point; and with a landing cancel, you can use the thwomp's upward movement from the previous cycle. In either case, this can save a few seconds. I'll make a video of this soon.


(7.) Also, a general timesaver that jda told me about: normally after you do a wall jump, there is some delay before you can spin again. However, if you spin with the Nunchuk instead of the Wiimote, the delay is shorter (i.e. you can spin sooner after the wall jump).



While testing World 1 stuff on Dolphin, I also took advantage of savestates to try and get semi-optimized times for each Star. This wasn't a big focus during my testing, but I did use 3 to 8 savestates on each Star (usually divided by planet, occasionally more fine-grained) as an attempt to get some theoretical times. You can think of these as "TAS lite" times. Here are the results:

Sky Station 1 w/comet medal - 1:51.76 (without Luma spin stomp)
Sky Station 2 - 1:40.80
Yoshi Star 1 w/comet medal - 1:29.68 (almost beaten by nemi in real time, heh)
Yoshi Star 2 - didn't record the time... I didn't really try on this one
Spin-Dig 1 w/medal - 2:22.71
Rightside Down 1 w/medal - 1:09.01
Rightside Down S - 0:54.78 (very low 14 on the crate minigame; just threw fireballs faster)
Fluffy Bluff S - 1:31.65
Fluffy Bluff 1 - 0:52.30
Fiery Flotilla 1 w/medal - 1:40.60 (start landing cancel, and packattack's strat for Gobblegut, I'm too lazy to learn the new one)
I'm maintaining a YT playlist of my strategy/IL videos:
Super Mario Galaxy 2 - Runs and strategies

Here are a couple of other videos showing some stuff you can do in Boulder Bowl 1. They're unlisted because they're laggy Dolphin screen-caps with no audio.
Bridge to Rollodillo strat
Rollodillo fast strat


Also, I did a 71-star run yesterday: 3:22:50.
World splits according to the Llanfair timer, at the moment each Grand Star cutscene starts: 30:57, 53:15, 1:28:55, 2:06:09, 2:35:57, 3:22:50. First two worlds were particularly good, because I've been practicing them more.
On another note, I did some re-organizing of the SDA Knowledge Base pages for Galaxy 2.

The main thing I did was move the Main page's contents into two separate pages, Game Mechanics and Route Planning Info; the Main page is now just a portal to the other pages. I also tried to improve the presentation of a couple of sub-sections, like Run Categories and Jumps, and added/changed a little bit of Infinite Flutter.

Overall, I didn't add much content, as I was just trying to make it easier to find relevant information. As always, feel free to edit my edits; it's not like I own the place or anything.


Some stuff that I think could be worth adding sometime:

1. In the route planning page: What events are triggered by what stars? (Rosalina letters, new starship passengers, new engine room powerups, etc.) Maybe this would go best in the Worlds section, but I'm not sure how to present it without cluttering that section too much.

2. In the game mechanics page: The stuff I found in Dolphin, distilled to the most relevant points. But in case any readers are interested in the finer details, or where the info's all coming from, maybe it would be good to cite the Google docs as references? Or copy the Google docs over to separate wiki pages? Not sure.

3. In separate pages: Star-specific tips. Kind of like the Galaxy 1 star strategies page I made long ago, except a lot easier to follow and more practical. Specifically:
- More video links and images
- Less text descriptions (except to supplement videos/images, and for non-obvious things)
- Focus on major tricks/routes, instead of minute details, for ease of maintenance
- One page per World, or possibly one per galaxy
trepidation
I think you are doing great work on this game, and it is all duly noted.

I've accomplished most of the tricks in this game, but sadly do not have proper capture equipment. I just don't want you to think that (what has become your thread) is being ignored.

Keep it up!
I'm getting feedback from people on Twitch, IRC, and YouTube, so it's not that lonely here; just using this thread to give some general updates (of my findings as well as other people's). But thanks!
Why am I not getting email notifications of new posts? Angry

Anyway, that Rollodillo strat is ridiculous! I tried it a few times, but I couldn't get it at all. At this point, it's looking like a TAS only strat.

I like your ideas regarding the KB. I do have notes on some Starship events, and while it isn't comprehensive, I can add what I have. I think there are enough of these events to justify its own section on the Route Planning page.
Yeah, a separate section for Starship events sounds good, actually. I just got that section started with a few events. I'm not sure if the way I organized it will still look good when the section's complete, so go ahead and change it as needed.
Edit history:
yoshifan: 2014-01-01 04:30:42 am
yoshifan: 2014-01-01 04:30:20 am
yoshifan: 2014-01-01 04:29:49 am
yoshifan: 2014-01-01 04:29:48 am
yoshifan: 2014-01-01 04:28:08 am
yoshifan: 2014-01-01 04:27:00 am
A couple of things that I'm too lazy to video at the moment (got to practice for AGDQ):


1. In Chompworks stars 1 and 2, if you use the first launch star while in the middle of a north-facing long jump, you'll get a smooth landing (meaning you'll be able to run immediately without having to landing cancel). This is nice because without this trick, this particular landing can't be camera-canceled; it can only be jump-canceled, and jump cancels are frame perfect.

In star 2, however, entering with a north-facing long jump is kind of inconvenient (at least with Mario). You have to double jump onto the launch star pedestal first, and then long jump and use the launch star. So in this case, the north-facing long jump is about even with entering the launch star some other way and getting a slow landing.

I wonder... where else can you get smooth landings like this?


2. In Shiverburn star 1, at the ice path, you can turn the camera to the side to make the timing of the falling ice more favorable. I basically follow the route in nemi's 71-star run (here's a link to the part I'm talking about), but during the third long jump, I press D-pad left twice. This stops the falling ice until the camera turns back; it should turn back automatically before the long jump to the large octoombas.

This should save 3-4 seconds.


3. For the Shiverburn comet star, it turns out that when you're Rainbow Mario, skating and running (with arms to the sides) on ice have the same top speed and acceleration. However, running has better maneuverability, so it's easier and a bit faster than skating here.

So my strategy is to skate for about one second, and then jump; when Rainbow Mario lands from a skating jump, he stops skating for some reason. Since I skated for one second, Mario should have accelerated enough to be at a full run here. From there, I run for the remainder of the stage.