tera any% science/rambling

x speeds using the shorthop “setup”:
freshmaniac: 0.806 (dustgirl)
nighthawk: 0.806 (dustgirl)
luffy: 0.496 (dustman)
wayward: 0.806 (dustgirl)
sheila: 0.806 (dustgirl)
heavy: 0.026 (dustman)

not enough data for dustman setups, and the ending is harder for absolutely no gain anyway.  I’ll focus on the dustgirl setup:

hold left, dash 3rd possible frame
jump next frame (release at some point for shorthop)
downdash is “irrelevant” (79 is earliest possible frame, anything else doesnt matter so long as you arent incredibly late)
start holding right frame 93, release 15 frames later
innit


perfect run for this setup:
http://dustkid.com/replay/-9171198 (downlight ending, need to dash back)
http://dustkid.com/replay/-9171194 (downheavy ending)

keep in mind some of the frames saved here are from not buffering super during hitstop.  fresh’s run was only a frame late on the downdash, but lost 1 frame in the ending from supering during hitstop.  so total, fresh’s run lost 1 frame on the downdash, 1 frame on the heavy cancels, and 1 frame to supering during hitstop (which is really impressive lol).

for the downlight ending, dashing back and immediately supering is nearly mandatory for hitting all the prisms with the super, and will also help prevent supering during hitstop (dash cancel will happen after hitstop, but it’s likely you wont be perfect on the dash cancel to super so it’s kinda irrelevent).  tl;dr you’ll pretty much break even if you dash back to the left after the downlight and it’s much easier to land the super.


OVERALL: unless you do the downlight ending, there’s only 3 frames of wiggle room on fresh’s run which means it’s gonna be pretty insane to beat.  i’ve been told by fresh other shorthop setups exist, but i cant imagine anything saving time over the setup i described above that every other dustgirl runs pulled off.



that being said, TAS does a completely setupless tera, which requires mashing left/right during the entire fall to prevent touching either of the walls.  this is absolutely impossible in RTA even with pause buffering.  the reason for not being able to get the tera with this method is because you cannot get an acceptable x speed in the teradrop from dash speed as either character (you get 11 units of x speed at the lowest, which is way too much to survive the entire fall.  In testing, i never lived past first long string of dustblocks).  the shorthop in the current setup allows us to leave the platform at a set speed which lands at nearly zero after holding right for 16 frames, but obviously jumping is slow when the goal is to go down and the setup grants us 2 less dustblocks at the start of the fall.  still, there are other methods to leave the platform with less speed using lights…

“New” setup with light:
http://dustkid.com/replay/-917123
Setup (frame perfect inputs in parenthesis):
hold left, dash frame 2 (1)
light last possible frame, neutral on frame 2 of the light (3)
downdash at or after frame 78
hold right 15 frames at frame 94  (5)
innit

Pros: saves ~2 frames (plus 3 frames from having more dust in the ending), same number of frame perfect inputs
Cons: frame perfect left release mid attack (pretty hard)

edit because im a fuckin moron: doing this setup ALSO gets you more dust going into the ending, allowing you to do the light much earlier.  this is what a human theory tas looks like with this route: http://dustkid.com/replay/-9171322#


takeaways/other things to investigate:
- try shit with man, less ground friction might mean he saves a frame on this setup somehow.  I messed with it a bit and got nowhere

- fresh’s run is really solid, while 5 frames from a new setup is fairly significant i doubt this will really overtake the level and cause the record to change hands.

- real timesave would mostly come from the downlight ending.  Doing a dash back to the left makes the super 10000x more consistent and will possibly save frames since it’ll force you to not super during hitstop (unless you dash the very first possible frame before hitstop starts, which is very unlikely), but immediately getting a super out of a dash can be tricky so you’ll probably just break even.

- fuck fresh

4.20 kb