Dystopia 3 TAS?

I've long wanted to see a UV speed TAS of Dystopia 3, because the maps are beautiful and there are some really cool shortcuts. Today I loaded dyst3 in prboom-plus to play the first few maps in slow motion just to try out routes, using save/reload to manage the shortcuts and stay out of enemy fire, but otherwise not trying to optimize anything. I got the following times, some of them improvable by several seconds:

map01 - 0:20
map02 - 0:38
map03 - 0:39
map04 - 1:16
map05 - 0:48
map06 - 0:07

The tricks/routes I've come up with:

map01 - Hit all switches in the main room before they rise.
map02 - Jump through the window to skip the blue key. I also grab the blue armor here for better odds on map04.
map03 - Damn, if the death trap had 5 seconds longer delay or the mancubus wasn't there, you could run directly to the exit without finishing the race. Anyway, there is still a nice trick on this map which is to get a monster to open the yellow key door.
map04 - Only trick I've found here is skipping switches in the first room.
map05 - Yellow key can be skipped. Brief detour to grab supercharge for map06.
map06 - Arch-vile jump to exit.

Unfortunately, the fun ends on map07, which is essentially a big maze with monsters blocking your way everywhere, and that's where I quit playing for now.

The idea is that I'll actually record this when I get the time... (unless someone else wants to do it)

Excellent, this is one of my favorite wads too.

Just did map07 in 2:58. There are monsters everywhere, but there's also a plasma gun and enough ammo to fire almost constantly, so no particular strategy will be needed.

The archie jump on map06 is one that can be done with only 20% damage (by making sure the explosion occurs in the void; you need to be pressed up against the side wall at the critical moment), so it could (just about, I think) be used in a "from scratch" demo or without needing to spend time grabbing extra health at the end of map05 (unless you're really low at that point). More info here.

I haven't verified this by actually recording a demo, but by using idbeholdr and seeing that my health only dropped by 14% (with green armour) when all went well.

The problem isn't so much the arch-vile blast as the slime on the way there. It looks like it might be just doable with 100% health + blue armor, but there's no blue armor in map05 and I doubt I'll have much left by then. But I'll try it out; thanks for the tip.

OK, I recorded something. UV will be more difficult, but with TAS-style movement and a bit of luck, I think it should be OK. Note that in this non-TAS demo without strafe-50 and with my lousy running, I still made the jump with one dose of nukage damage to spare.

Dystopia3 map06 NM (non-TAS) in 0:07:

dy06n007.zip

Did map01 in 0:18.26. Good enough for the rest of the run? Someone more skilled in the art could probably easily get 0:17, but I feel I'd just be wasting my time trying...

dy01x018.zip

And here's with map02 in 0:28 added. Couldn't kill the hell knight any faster than this without dying, unfortunately. The arachnotrons did great though, they even opened a door for me that I hadn't expected.

dy1-2.zip

Looking good. BTW, there looks to be a possible flat-face 32-unit glide in map02 (through linedef 663 or 672) which would get you straight to the exit building without needing to get past the arachnotrons, etc.

These glides are a pain though... (maybe something for a built demo, rather than TAS). Cack-Handed might be able to say if it is a difficult one. All I can say is that I haven't managed to do it, but then I normally can't.

Well, this is far from optimized anyway so I'm just going to continue. Here's map03 (0:33) and map04 (0:58). Map04 looks the way it does because there are hitscan monsters everywhere and barely any health at all. I also had to do some dumb stuff to manipulate the monsters into opening doors for me.

...what happened to the attachment?

Nevermind, posted here

Fredrik said:

...what happened to the attachment?

Nevermind, posted here

They have to be approved by the moderator first. It was always like that.

Fredrik said:

...what happened to the attachment?

sigh

It's also greatly appreciated if you include at least a very basic textfile saying who recorded it, what wads/maps it is on, and, especially in the case of a TAS demo, how it was recorded.

I know attachments have to be approved, but for some reason I'd gotten the idea that I should see the attachment when editing my post.

Will add a text file when I finish, but these are just works in progress.

Still worth adding a text-file just saying that though (e.g. "Fredrik, Dystopia 3, WIP TAS movie"). Otherwise people are going to find these files on their hard-disk a year from now and not know what they are.

Grazza said:

BTW, there looks to be a possible flat-face 32-unit glide in map02 (through linedef 663 or 672)

I just tried it and it's an "easy" one. Whenever you're moving from east to west they always are, I don't know why. Some tips for VANILLA ONLY, other ports may vary. You need to be standing on the higher step, just on the verge of falling off, flat against the wall, pointing dead straight, to be properly aligned for this one. Then run forward until a slightly darker column of pixels appears on the very left column of your monitor, representing the front face of the left-hand wall. Then edge forward as if for a normal bar glide. It should work within a few seconds.

cack_handed said:

You need to be standing on the higher step, just on the verge of falling off, flat against the wall, pointing dead straight, to be properly aligned for this one. Then run forward until a slightly darker column of pixels appears on the very left column of your monitor, representing the front face of the left-hand wall. Then edge forward as if for a normal bar glide.

Following those instructions, I got it to work - thanks! (both for checking and taking the trouble to explain the method)

1-6 added

I needed to grab at least a medikit in map05, and tried three different approaches: the medikit by the red key, the medikit by the yellow key, and the supercharge. Due to the timing of the crushers by the yellow key, however, my exit time was 0:33 in all three cases. Kept medikit by yellow key because it looks best. The arch-vile refused to cooperate any better than this even after a great many attempts so I also only got 0:08 on map06.

Well, I'm at least making the run consistently improvable :P