Ares speedrun - in verification! - Ambrosia Software Web Board

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Ares speedrun - in verification!

#1 NMS

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Posted 10 May 2009 - 11:35 PM

I know you guys have hijacked this subforum for Xsera, but there doesn't seem to be a more appropriate one. And the rest are practically dead, except for Trash Talk.

I've been working on a speedrun of Ares and I was wondering if anyone here still plays. It's mostly for fun but I may submit it to speeddemosarchive.com. If I do, they'll need people who've played to verify it.

In the mean time, I have a few questions I hope you can answer:

- How fast does the game run in "fast time"? Is it a fixed ratio or does it run as fast as possible? I'm using the game timer, so this doesn't affect my results, but I'm curious.

- Why do the zoom in and zoom out keys sometimes stop working? It's mostly a problem on Chapter 16: Hornet's Nest. After I've transferred control to a Heavy Destroyer I can only change the zoom using the shortcuts for a specific zoom level.

Edit: Solved. It's a keyboard hardware limitation.

- Has anyone else tried this? If so, do you want to compare times?

This post has been edited by NMS: 12 June 2011 - 07:26 PM

#2 adam_0

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Posted 11 May 2009 - 07:54 AM

Please post the results of your speedrun, it could be helpful to use Xsera developers. (and sorry for posting this off-topic-ness in your topic, it sounds extremely interesting)

Back on topic, I do know that some commands are disabled in some levels (I'm thinking of the tutorials, mainly, although I don't know if that's true for any of the regular levels). Hopefully that addresses your second bullet.

... my other ride is an Ishiman Heavy Cruiser.

(x)enos. Awesome in a can. Without the can, though.

#3 NMS

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Posted 11 May 2009 - 09:08 PM

Here are my best recorded times so far:
1 - 0:35
2 - 0:21
3 - 1:30
4 - 5:19
5 - 1:51
6 - 2:06
7 - 0:41
8 - 1:00
9 - 4:42
10 - 0:16
11 - 2:16
12 - 7:07
13 - 2:03
14 - 9:25
15 - 1:39
16 - 1:39
17 - 7:37
18 - 2:52
19 - 5:06
20 - 6:33

Chapter 20 needs serious work, but the rest I think are pretty close to optimal.

The movies are in DV format, so they're enormous, but I'll look into encoding them in some other format to make uploading easier.

As for the zoom keys not working, I can't replicate it anymore, so I guess it was just some weird bug.

#4 Two Jacks

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Posted 11 May 2009 - 10:04 PM

Nice.

Kudos for you.

#5 Lord Commander Anic

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Posted 17 May 2009 - 06:09 PM

Interesting.
Let us know when you post the movies.

Oh, so it is another bug hunt then...

#6 JacaByte

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Posted 17 May 2009 - 06:20 PM

F6 is the speed mode. I call it speed because it forces Ares to draw one frame for every clock calculation that the computer can handle. So if you have a really fast computer, this could potentially speed things up from 30 FPS (frames of reference, as a time measure) to 300 to 400 FPS, speeding things up by a factor of 10 or more. On old Quadras and Performas, this was probably around 40 to 50 FPS on the less busy levels.

#7 NMS

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Posted 17 May 2009 - 10:32 PM

Thanks for the info. I though it seemed faster than I remembered. I'm playing on a 1 GHz eMac, which is twice as fast as the computer I used to play on. I estimate fast mode is 20-something times as fast as normal.

Also, chapter 20 is down to 4:00! It's totally ridiculous.

#8 NMS

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Posted 18 May 2009 - 09:35 PM

Videos are up on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=B569D1DCEA1423FE

#9 Pallas Athene

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Posted 18 May 2009 - 11:26 PM

I'd bet you can improve a lot on your Shoplifter 1 time. I always had better luck in that mission by transferring control to the Obish transport and instructing the HVC to follow me. In your run, you tell the transport to hold back to keep it out of harm's way, but when you control it directly, you can bring it in immediately.

#10 adam_0

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Posted 19 May 2009 - 10:22 AM

These videos will be very helpful, thanks for posting them!

*downloads speedrun videos*

... my other ride is an Ishiman Heavy Cruiser.

(x)enos. Awesome in a can. Without the can, though.

#11 Two Jacks

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Posted 19 May 2009 - 12:01 PM

Sweet.

*subscribes*

#12 NMS

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Posted 19 May 2009 - 03:35 PM

QUOTE (adam_0 @ May 19 2009, 11:22 AM)

These videos will be very helpful, thanks for posting them!

You're welcome.

QUOTE (Pallas Athene @ May 19 2009, 12:26 AM)

Well, I have to control the cruiser for combat. No way will it kill everything that needs to be killed fast enough under AI control. But I transfer control to the transport to pick up and drop off the Obiards. If I wait too long, the transport may get scared of the cell and evade, but I don't think that happened in this attempt. I certainly didn't hold it back. I don't want to destroy the cell too soon, though, because the Obiards will end up scattered. So the plan is to damage but not destroy the cell, watch the transport approach on radar, and transfer to it when it gets close. Then the cruiser destroys the cell, the Obiards move towards the transport, and I can drift in backwards, grab 3-5 of them, and head back to the liner. I screwed up the third cell (I didn't have time to target the transport, so I didn't transfer), but I think it only cost a few seconds. The first 2 cells went pretty well. I'll try to improve it though.

#13 redsteven

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Posted 25 May 2009 - 02:14 AM

QUOTE (adam_0 @ May 19 2009, 10:22 AM)

These videos will be very helpful, thanks for posting them!

*downloads speedrun videos*

yeah, seriously.

they're a fantastic reference. A video of every level from start to finish. excellent.

BTW, what did you use to make the recordings, NMS? An old version of Snapz?

This post has been edited by redsteven: 25 May 2009 - 02:18 AM

#14 NMS

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Posted 25 May 2009 - 11:57 AM

Just bear in mind that I don't play some of the levels the way they're meant to be played. You'd get a better idea of how they work looking at them in Hera.

I record it by connecting the external monitor port and audio out on my eMac to a Hollywood DV Bridge, which converts the analog signal to DV and sends it via firewire to a MacBook, where I import it into iMovie. For YouTube, I converted the clips to H.264 and deinterlaced them using MPEG Streamclip. It's kind of surprising they're even watchable on YouTube, considering what they've been through.

#15 NMS

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Posted 14 June 2009 - 05:11 PM

Well, I figured out why the keypad + and - keys don't always work. It's a keyboard hardware limitation. They don't do anything while certain combinations of other keys are held down. For instance, command and space together (which I would normally be holding down while I'm fighting in a heavy destroyer).

#16 KGB

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Posted 16 June 2009 - 07:17 PM

Chapters 6, 16, and 18 do not play in high quality. Other than that, great job!

"In times of stress, be bold and valiant". -Horace

#17 Lord Commander Anic

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Posted 28 June 2009 - 06:50 PM

Cool, watching them now!
(Gets urge to warm up os9 and take Ares out for a spin!)

Oh, so it is another bug hunt then...

#18 NMS

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Posted 04 September 2009 - 04:40 PM

I submitted my run to speeddemosarchive.com and they need verifiers to watch the videos and confirm that I'm not cheating. I would really appreciate it if some people who know the game would sign up. For more information, go here: http://speeddemosarchive.com/forum/index.p...pic,1285.0.html

Don't post that you signed up (this is to keep me from influencing the verifiers). Thanks!

#19 adam_0

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Posted 04 September 2009 - 09:03 PM

Let's hypothetically say that I might be interested in looking into verifying this speed run. I went to that site, but I found no way to view all the videos (except what you posted on YouTube, which I don't think is official). Do I need to ask the admin for the location of the videos, or how do I watch them, outside of your YouTube videos (or is that how it should be done)?

... my other ride is an Ishiman Heavy Cruiser.

(x)enos. Awesome in a can. Without the can, though.

#20 NMS

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Posted 04 September 2009 - 09:09 PM

Sorry, I should have explained you have to PM Mike Uyama (mikwuyma) to sign up to verify. There is a link on the left of the post. Once there are verifiers signed up, he will ask me to send him my videos.

#21 NMS

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Posted 04 December 2009 - 10:08 PM

Bump. I submitted my speedrun of Ares to speeddemosarchive.com a while ago, so they will probably only require 2 people to verify it. Please sign up, because it's a really obscure game and I don't know how else I would find people to verify my run. You don't have to be amazing at Ares, you just have to be familiar enough with the game to determine if what I did is possible and check for evidence of cheating. I improved most of the levels since I uploaded the ones on Youtube, and if you sign up to verify, you'll get to see them before anyone else.

Also, if the run is verified and posted on SDA, it might attract interest to Xsera and Antares (I would mention them in my comments).

If you're interested, you can read more about the verification process here: http://speeddemosarchive.com/forum/index.p...pic,1285.0.html

To sign up, click on the speech bubble icon under mikwuyma's avatar to send him a PM.

This post has been edited by NMS: 05 December 2009 - 04:36 PM

#22 adam_0

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Posted 05 December 2009 - 12:43 PM

The link doesn't work, unfortunately. Also, I sent him a message a while back and never heard anything.

... my other ride is an Ishiman Heavy Cruiser.

(x)enos. Awesome in a can. Without the can, though.

#23 NMS

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Posted 05 December 2009 - 04:38 PM

Fixed. And I figured you would from your hypothetical post. You're probably the only one. Maybe you could help convince one or two other people?

#24 Two Jacks

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Posted 05 December 2009 - 07:50 PM

I totally forgot that Ares had cheat codes or a gamewinners page..

#25 NMS

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Posted 12 June 2011 - 07:30 PM

Thanks to Antares, my Ares speedrun is finally in verification at speeddemosarchive.com! If any of you signed up to verify and haven't been contacted, you should log in to their forum and check your private threads.