TAS Challenge 2

[vdgg]

Credits to Ancalagon for the idea.

Ancalagon said:

another map idea that would be fun to watch is a vile at center and the player must kill it with his 50 pistol ammo, ofc there is no cover at all.

I liked the simplicity of the idea, plus, the demo should have good "watchability". No extra viles, no demons, it would just make everything longer/more tedious. But I created some damaging floors :) Hope the map works as intended, there's no cover anywhere. If there is something wrong, report please.

Map slot - MAP20, to avoid D_RUNNIN.
Don't mess with -complevels. Only vanilla (complevel 2). Skill 4.

I believe this to be very easy compared to TAS Challenge 1.
Let me suggest points awards:
2 points - first successful attempt (FSA)
1 point - exit within 24 hours after FSA which is faster than FSA. So if you were about to post your demo, but someone was just quicker, you may post yours for one point (if faster) or redo/optimize (if slower). Can't award this point to the same person who posted FSA. No demo within 24 hours after the first one - no points awarded.

taschal2.zip

[4shockblast]

0:29

taschal2_shock_029.zip

[Azuruish]

MMmmm. Maybe instead creating new and new thread you both: vdgg, aqfaq and others with awesome ideas will create megawad where will be such exciting 32 maps?

[Aqfaq]

Good idea, Azuruish. Maybe somebody with more experience could organize a community project for DTCM: Doom TAS Challenge Megawad? I'd be glad to make one map for such a project.

[vdgg]

...And the MegaWAD fetish strikes again.

I somehow managed to rule my map out from April fool's WAD, and now this?

Thanks 4shockblast, ofc I didn't anticipate death exit, should have made an exit switch or a teleporter to an exit chamber.

[Aqfaq]

Why did you use only 50% slowmotion? My experience with emulator TASing says that slowmotion is a very ineffective method, even when you use 1% slowmotion. A much better method is frame-advance. The game is paused and you hold the buttons you want to press, then you hit the frame-advance hotkey, which advances one frame/tic with the input you held. This way you can specify the input frame by frame, tic by tic. It is much more precise than using slowmotion. It also becomes quite fast, when you get used to it. Is there "frame-advance" hotkey in prboom+?

Also, do you have hotkeys for quicksave and quickload? This makes segmenting fast as you can reload the previous point with a single button.

Also, how do you use -trace_thingshealth? Is it easy to use or could it be improved? Lua scripting has become a standard tool in any emulators designed for TASing. Lua scripts can be used for displaying useful info, like the player coordinates and player speed, enemy HP, etc. Is it possible to use Lua scripts while TASing Doom? I know some emulator TASers who have even made Lua scripts for predicting RNG values in real time. Like, you could have a "ghost player" running parallel to you that tests shooting every tic. It informs you when a shot produces a max damage hit. That way you would not need to manually test many shots to check whether a hit is a good one. You would just aim the monster and try different movements until the Lua script informs you that you have found a good hit. At least for hitscan weapons the Lua script could easily show in real time what the shot damage will be at any given tic.

[Archi]

4shockblast said:

0:29

What happened at 0:13?

[Akse]

0:25

taschal2.zip

[4shockblast]

Aqfaq said:

Why did you use only 50% slowmotion? My experience with emulator TASing says that slowmotion is a very ineffective method, even when you use 1% slowmotion. A much better method is frame-advance. The game is paused and you hold the buttons you want to press, then you hit the frame-advance hotkey, which advances one frame/tic with the input you held. This way you can specify the input frame by frame, tic by tic. It is much more precise than using slowmotion. It also becomes quite fast, when you get used to it. Is there "frame-advance" hotkey in prboom+?

Also, how do you use -trace_thingshealth?

XDRE is a frame-by-frame editor, but I was too lazy to use it most of the time for this run since I just wanted an exit. -trace_things health is launched as a parameter when starting PrBoom+ and can trace health for up to three monsters. XDRE just gives a damage done info box, which gives overall damage done. Not sure if there are better ways of doing either.

@Archi I have no idea what happened at 0:13, for some reason the archvile didn't attack.

Also, nice improvement, Akse!

[Aqfaq]

4shockblast said:

for some reason the archvile didn't attack.

That is an interesting event, indeed. Is it maybe the same phenomenon as in doom2 map 02, where the shotgun guy doesn't see the player? This trick looks like it should work with any monster, but finding places where it works might be difficult. Theoretically it might be possible to play so that no monster ever shoots the player, because the player always finds a little blind spot somewhere.

[vdgg]

Points awarded:

4shockblast - 2 points
Akse        - 1 point.

Overall after Challenge 2:

Akse        - 6
4shockblast - 2.

Anyone willing to continue?

[ClumsyDoomer]

I'm going to be a spectator. No will to participate right now.

[MD922]

I can participate sometime, preferably on the weekend. I got like 4 seconds into building this run, never got to finish.

[vdgg]

Probably we should abandon the idea of favouring the fastest published demo. All depends on the type of challenge, of course.

[MD922]

I think you should give like 48 hours and whoever participates gets points, so there isn't an advantage from the time you post and the actual in-game time.

[Keyboard_Doomer]

4shockblast said:

@Archi I have no idea what happened at 0:13, for some reason the archvile didn't attack.

I may be entirely wrong but I originally thought it was intentional abuse of the bug that's discussed here. But seems like if that was the case 4shockblast would at least take 20 damage from the Archvile.