Diploma TAS FAQ

Q: What is a TAS?
A: A TAS, or Tool Assisted Speedrun, is a speedrun where you manually tell the game which inputs will be pressed at which specific frame. Essentially, speedruns done with tools, rather than human input. What this allows us to do is see how a game can be ran without the limit of human error. This allows us to craft a theoretical "perfect time", usually involving tricks that are borderline impossible for humans to do.

TASes are not allowed on regular leaderboards for obvious reasons but it is very interesting to look at what could be made possible beyond human limits and a TAS, especially as the strategies you use when you're *not* limited by human limit are often very different from when you are.

In the case of pokemon speedruns, TASes are not only based around the lack of limit of human error, but the lack of limit of luck. Pokemon TASes use an immense amount of RNG manipulation (often referred to as "manip" for short) to theorycraft what a run with perfect luck looks like. It's not just getting perfect luck, it's *knowing* that you'll have perfect luck. Some examples include not buying and using repels (since you can manip a path through wild grass that avoids all encounters), and the lack of healing before fights (since you can usually manip the AI to never attack you, for attacks to miss, or for you to be able to never get attacked in the first place).

Q: What is the goal of this TAS?
A: The goal is for complete the pokedex in all of Pokemon Crystal, Silver, and Yellow and get their respective diplomas, without the use of glitches.

Q: Why these three games specifically?
A: In order to complete the dex in gen 2, you need 2 gen 2 games and 1 gen 1 game. 2 gen 2 games because all of them have a least one jhoto pokemon that is unobtainable for them and needs to be traded from another game (Mareep in Crystal, for example), and 1 gen 1 game because there are a group of pokemon in gen 1 that cannot be obtained in any gen 2 game, those being all of the gen 1 starters, fossil pokemon, legendary birds, and Mewtwo.

The choice for the gen 1 game was very simple; Yellow is by far the best choice and it isn't even close. The main reason is that you can obtain all of the gen 1 starters in one save file in Yellow. If Red or Blue were to be used, they would have to trade one of the starters to gen 2 and reset, trade the second one and reset, and then pick the last one. Yellow still needs to reset for the second fossil pokemon (you can only get 1 per save file) but one reset is still leagues better than two.

For the first gen 2 game, Crystal was an easy choice. Doing this with Gold and Silver technically would have worked but Crystal has two big advantages. The first being that the pokemon Crystal can catch are far superior. Certain fully evolved pokemon like Weezing and Granbull are available in the wild that aren't in Gold and Silver and some pokemon like Slugma are found at much higher levels. All of this saves a lot of precious exp. The second being that in the Celadon Game Corner, Crystal can win a level 40 Larvitar that isn't available in either Gold or Silver. This is extremely crucial a) because the Larvitar in Mt Silver are only level 20 and b) getting it before Mt Silver lets Larvitar gain exp from the Kanto gym leaders.

For the second gen 2 game, the choice is a bit closer but Silver wins out. The main reason is that Silver can catch Lugia much eariler than Gold can. This is significant because Lugia ends up being a very useful HM slave in the run, thanks to its ability to learn both Fly and Surf (as well as Whirlpool and Waterfall).

Q: Does Mew and Celebi get caught?
A: No, neither are required for dex completion.

Q: How do you manipulate perfect luck?
A: A combination of input delays and print letter delay (holding b while text is printing). In Silver, rng can also vary based on whether or not you hold down a button during a screen transition (when the screen turns white from taking an exit, for example) but this does not work in Yellow or Crystal.